New Year's Day in Barranquilla
Nancy Mestre left her family's home in Barranquilla on New Year's Eve to attend a celebration with Jaime Saade Cormane. In the early hours of January 1, 1994, she was taken to a medical facility with a gunshot wound and remained in a coma.
Nancy died after nine days. Forensic findings contradicted the initial account that she had attempted suicide, and the investigation developed into a homicide and sexual-violence prosecution against Saade.
Conviction in absentia
Saade fled Colombia shortly after the crime. In 1996, a Colombian court convicted him in absentia. Contemporary reporting describes an original combined sentence of 27 years for homicide and sexual assault.
Because he was a fugitive, that sentence was not immediately served. Saade eventually established himself in Brazil under the identity Henrique dos Santos Abdala, where he built a family life and business while Colombian authorities and Nancy's father, Martín Mestre, continued searching for him.
Identification in Brazil
Investigators eventually traced Saade to Belo Horizonte. Brazilian authorities detained him in 2020 after confirming his identity. The extradition litigation was unusually prolonged: an initial Brazilian Supreme Court outcome prevented transfer, but later proceedings reopened the path to extradition.
Saade was detained again in 2023 after Brazil's Supreme Court changed the earlier extradition outcome. Colombia continued pressing for his return before the homicide sentence could become unenforceable.
Why the sentence numbers differ
The sentence history requires careful wording. News coverage frequently describes the original Colombian judgment as a 27-year combined sentence for homicide and sexual assault. But Brazilian extradition proceedings excluded the sexual-offence component because, under the applicable Brazilian analysis, that offence was time-barred for extradition purposes.
In December 2023, Colombia's Procuraduría General de la Nación stated that Saade had an enforceable 24-year prison sentence for Nancy Mestre's homicide, that the homicide sentence had not prescribed, and that his extradition was needed so a Barranquilla sentence-execution court could supervise its service.
Extradition after three decades
Brazil formally authorized Saade's delivery to Colombia in March 2024. On April 11, 2024, he arrived at Bogotá's El Dorado airport under escort after more than thirty years as a fugitive and was transferred into Colombian custody to serve the homicide sentence.
The extradition did not create a new murder conviction. It made possible the execution in Colombia of the standing homicide judgment after decades in which Saade had evaded the sentence.
Martín Mestre's search
Nancy's father, Martín Mestre, spent decades pursuing information about Saade's whereabouts and pressing authorities to keep the case alive. Major Colombian reporting credits his persistence as central to the eventual identification, arrest and extradition process.
That history is included here because it explains why a 1994 crime remained an active cross-border justice matter into 2024 without turning the case into a dramatic reconstruction.
Timeline
January 1, 1994: Nancy Mestre is taken to a Barranquilla clinic after being fatally wounded.
January 1994: Nancy dies after nine days in a coma; Jaime Saade has fled Colombia.
1996: Saade is convicted in absentia in Colombia.
2020: Brazilian authorities capture Saade after investigators confirm the identity he had used in Brazil.
2021: an initial extradition outcome in Brazil blocks his transfer.
2023: Brazil's Supreme Court revisits the matter and Saade is detained again; Colombian authorities continue seeking extradition.
December 22, 2023: Colombia's Procuraduría states that the 24-year homicide sentence remains enforceable and requests information on the delayed extradition.
March 2024: Brazil authorizes the extradition under conditions that exclude the time-barred sexual-offence component.
April 11, 2024: Saade is extradited to Colombia to serve the homicide sentence.
Current status
The case is solved / adjudicated. Jaime Saade Cormane was convicted for Nancy Mestre's killing and, after decades as a fugitive, was returned to Colombia in 2024. The current sentence description on this page follows the Colombian Procuraduría's official statement that the enforceable homicide term is 24 years, while separately noting the 27-year combined sentence described in reporting on the original judgment.