Nahuel Gallotta
04/26/2020 - 18:53
- Clarín.com
- Police
Guillermo "Concheto" Álvarez (42), convicted of four homicides, was one of the most named Devoto inmates on Friday. He was not on the roofs while the violent riot unfolded, but he was at the meeting in which penitentiaries, control and human rights organizations, representatives of the Ministry of Justice and the Public Ministry of Defense, and private attorneys participated.
Álvarez answers Clarín's questions from one of the public telephones in the prison for university student prisoners . He says he is upset about what he said about his role in the meeting, and that because of that false information, his mother suffered a pre-infarction. So he agrees to speak.
“ I had no active participation. The boys asked me to represent them, nothing more, "he says. " I did not negotiate anything. I went on behalf of a pavilion to convey the problem. The authorities had asked for a representative per ward to tell them what was happening in each sector, because the entire prison had been taken. I just went to tell the state of the situation, "he adds.
Mutiny in the Devoto prison.Photo: Fernando de la Orden.
Álvarez was sentenced in 1998 to 25 years in prison, in San Isidro, for a series of assaults and the murder of a businessman. Shortly thereafter, a Buenos Aires court sentenced him to "indefinite detention" for a string of blows that culminated in the death of a police officer and a 24-year-old girl. The third sentence against him was 18 years in prison for stabbing an inmate in the Caseros prison.
He was released in December 2015. After three months he was arrested for attempted robbery. He says he has 25 years of effective compliance. " I regret my past, but in this last arrest I am innocent. I was imprisoned for my past, " he warns.
-What was your participation in the riot in Devoto?
-At Friday's meeting the right to reply was raised and, punctually, it was explained to the judges by live voice of the Federal Penitentiary Service how the events were, and what my participation was. They themselves heard from the first source that I had no active participation. My name appeared because I was summoned to represent my pavilion. At the meeting, each pavilion had its referent or representative.
Mutiny in Devoto's jail. Photo Lucia Merle.
-How did you choose it?
-My colleagues chose me: for being close to receiving me as a lawyer, for my way of expressing myself, my knowledge and for my position at the Devoto University Center (CUD). In total we were 25. The issue is that our names were organized alphabetically and I appeared first in the list, by my last name. But I am one more prisoner. It is a lie that I was the only one who negotiated with the Government and that I was at the forefront of the protest, as was said these days. 25 prisoners participated. And it wasn't really a negotiation. It was a truce. What we tried was to pacify the prison and bring the population's demands closer to the Ministry. There were no hostages; for there to be negotiation there has to be something to exchange. What we offered the government was to tell them why what happened happened. But there was never any intention of taking hostages. If not, they would have taken them.
Mutiny in the Devoto prison.Photo: Fernando de la Orden.
- In whose name did he speak?
-I spoke on behalf of my pavilion. That was my participation. I know perfectly well that in the framework of this claim I do not enter what was called a 'risk group'. I did not go to negotiate or ask for anything specific for me. I entered Devoto in 2016 and I am a reference from the first months. I am in charge of the institutional role of the CUD: I am in charge of dialoguing with the SPF, of contacting judges, of mediating. I make all kinds of orders and claims. That generates absolute exposure for me: I am a benchmark for habeas corpus and judicial filings. But let's say that I'm a reference or representative, from my ward and sometimes even from the prison, in every way.
Mutiny in Devoto's prison.Photo Juano Tesone.
-Why was the protest?
-It was an accumulation of situations. In reality, this is due to the lack of responses at the judicial level. It is not now, nor in the context of the pandemic. It is long before. The Judiciary took the pandemic as a great fair. We have no answers for anything, or the Courts go around to deal with simple incidents. We understand the times of the change of government, the pandemic, but there are things that cannot be expected. In mid-March presenting a habeas corpus demanding the delivery of cleaning supplies and reporting problems with food. We had been warning him. And the situation exploded, but as a result of the absence of the control agencies and the Judiciary. Because there is an intern between the Ministry of Justice and the SPF.
-What is the situation in prisons?
-The Government wants to limit the conflict based on COVID-19 and the group in a vulnerable situation. And here is another problem, which we are also raising. The prison population is under overcrowding, restriction of rights and so many other bad situations. Let's say the pandemic made everything worse. No one who does not have the conditions speculates that they will enter that risk group that would go away with house arrest. But we say that there is a neglect for the rest of the detainees.
Mutiny in the Devoto prison.Photo: Fernando de la Orden.
-What are the demands of the prisoners?
We are proposing compensation regarding the state of affairs that we have suffered for so many years. The idea is to legally compensate people who have suffered from a type of illegal confinement that is not related to constitutional standards and principles. Because as we live, it is not a sentence. Whoever comes to prison comes to receive treatment as it is socially reinserted. And far from that, we inmates suffer a lot of things. Then, the COVID-19 hatched everything else. We want to discuss everything and that the restrictions of the past are offset.
EMJ