from refractario transl. waronsociety:
Dear friends,
Compañeras and compañeros,
We would like to share with you the status of the legal situation our Tamara Sol is facing, prisoner in San Miguel jail in a “high security” module, since the 21st of January. She has lived this year along with other compañeras locked down for 23 hours a day with one hour to go out to the yard. She receives two visits a week, 5 people on Monday and 5 people on Friday (two hours each time). Tamara is accused of “attempted murder” and robbery. The prosecutor asked for 7 years without benefits*, from the first day she was detained.
We, her family, have been doomed to work primarily with her lawyers, Nelson Miranda and Margarita López, on all of the legal procedures to achieve the reduction of the sentence and ensure the corresponding legal benefits be taken into account, for previous irreproachable conduct and other extenuating circumstances.
On January 23, the trial against Tamara began and she was transferred from prison to the tribunal by TAR (High-Risk Transfer), with a contingent of around 20 men with weapons of war and Tamara chained around her feet and hands. The judges due to the gendermeria’s “recommendation” have kept her in these conditions the entire trial (around five hours a day), because she is a very dangerous person. In addition to this, for the same reason, they have only let seven people into the courtroom. The presence of many armed men of the gendermeria was noted backed up by “dogs,” on the floor in which the hearings were held and on the first floor in the courtyard with the “fountain” where the majority of the people who accompanied us in solidarity were.
The trial lasted for six days, ending on the 30th of January, the day in which they gave the verdict: PREMEDITATED ATTEMPTED HOMICIDE AND ROBBERY. On February 4th the sentence was read: 7 YEARS OF PRISON WITHOUT BENEFITS (premeditated attempted murder), 61 DAYS for Robbery and a fine of 215,000 Chilean pesos in addition to paying the costs of the trial.
The same verdict the prosecutor made at the beginning. WE WANT TO MAKE IT CLEAR THAT NOTHING PRESENTED BY THE DEFENSE WAS TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT BY THE MAJORITY OF THE JUDGES. Perhaps you have already heard all of the aforementioned, but we reiterate it.
Now we would like to clear up a few points that the fascist bourgeoisie press has taken upon themselves to invent, misrepresent, or omit throughout their audiovisual and written mediums.
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THE GUARD DID NOT DIE. He suffered wounds that produced no life long consequences that would disable him, according to the declaration in the trial made by the medical expert, neurologist Hugo Aguirre Astorga. This includes the fact that he is already working at another bank branch, according to their own bourgeoisie press.
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The prosecutor could not demonstrate during the trial a single act that implied premeditation. Without a doubt, judges José Flores Ramírez, Jenny Morales Espinoza and María Araya Tapia accepted what was put forth by the prosecutor, maintaining premeditation, when clearly it is a simple attempted homicide.
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Their is a clinical diagnostic of Tamara that was not duly considered by the tribunal.
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The act did not occur on any relevant date, it is not the anniversary of anything.
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Tamara is not Sebastián Oversluij’s girlfriend, she is only a friend.
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The ruling of the tribunal was not unanimous. ONE JUDGE CONSIDERED THE IRREPROACHABLE CONDUCT AND THE SOCIAL AND FAMILY ENVIRONMENT OF TAMARA TO REDUCE THE SENTENCE AT MINIMUM, TO 5 YEARS AND A DAY.
We as Tamara’s family are sure that this trial is political, it has been a farce, a judicial and media display and that the sentence was already dictated by the Ministry of the Interior from the beginning, as a punishment to our family and as a warning to those who concretely pit themselves against their government composed of traitors, their commercial, mercantile, dehumanizing system, their order established at the point of a submachine gun.
It is not accidentally that Mrs. Bachelet has signed a law decree just in the days of Tamara’s trial, giving every action that provokes public commotion a mandatory sentence of effective imprisonment** (always and when they are not rich or powerful, NOR HER CHILDREN).
Their media has already begun to relate Tamara’s case to that of March 29, with her uncles Eduardo and Rafael, this includes showing photographs of our sons and brothers between bank robberies from this decade. Neither is it accidentally that the police force maintain a presence in our doorway during the entire time the trial against Tamara has been carried out. Nor that the media of the powerful have said that this sentence is the longest sentence given to an ANARCHIST in the last decades in our country.
From all of this we can clearly see that jails are only for the poor. Not one rich or powerful person with a good name will pass through them, nor their deputies, nor senators, nor relatives, much less their children, whatever crime they commit; just as the blood that has been spilled throughout our history has been that of us poor people. Right now our lawyers are processing an appeal filed with the Supreme Court on Saturday February 14th which was admitted in the first instance. This is the last bit of legal processing we have done. We will see what happens and will communicate the results.
We want to acknowledge your constant solidarity with out daughter and granddaughter Tamara and your great affection which as always keeps us afloat while living through these hard circumstances once again, like many other families in this space called Chile that once was also our country.
A strong embrace to each and every one of you.
¡¡TAMRA SOL TO THE STREET!!
The Vergara Toledo Family
Villa Francia, February 22, 2015
*(Transl. Note: “Benefits” in the Chilean legal system seem to determine whether or not a prisoner is eligible for early release options such as night jail, conditional remission, and probation.)
**(Transl. Note: Effective meaning the sentence must be carried out in a formal prison, and the accused would not be eligible for conditional or suspended sentences- “without benefits”)
