Mr. Jaume Alonso Cuevillas

Dean of the Association of Lawyers of Barcelona





The Director of The Model prison made an official complaint against Francesc Arnau i Arias , trying to discredit the work of this lawyer , who has always fought against the injustices of the Judicial and Social system.



The complaint started in the publication , in different places , over the telephone call of the director of The Model prison to this lawyer informing him of the death , in very unclear/suspicious circumstances , the 17th June 2004 , of José Antonio Verdejo imprisoned in The Modelo . During this phone-call , the director asked for this news of the death of the prisoner to be communicated to his family .



THE SUSPICIOUS DEATH OF A “FIES” PRISONER



This prisoner , classified as “FIES” (Fichero de Internos de Especial Seguimiento = special Internment Blocks to isolate prisoners ) , spent 12 years inside as a prisoner and had suffered all kinds of repression , especially during the last four years . He suffered all kinds of tortures , a situation which got much worse in his last year : “dispersion” ,
being sent from one prison to the next ; “isolation” , from the other general prisoners ,
and possible isolation from all other prisoners ; “psychological manipulation” , psychological pressure applied in all sorts of ways from insults , humilliations , threats set-ups , etc , “psychops” ........ But he fought on right up to the last moment , with all the means he had at his disposal , even a long term hunger strike plus without drinking anything , from the 14th February until the 6th April 2004 . After , he spent time in three hospitals and , finally , was sent to The Modelo ...... in no place did he receive adequate
treatment . The official version is that he committed suicide ; we say that it was murder .










THE SCREW PHONES THE LAWYER



The phone-call announcing his death happened on Thursday at 10 p.m. , in the Badalona office of “DALP” (Office of Popular and Labour Assessment ) and all the people who were there , those who work there , and those who happened to be there for a legal consultation , were witnesses to the phone conversation between the lawyer Francesc Arnau and the director of the prison , who at that time was Pedro Dominguez .
Immediately there were people who offered to go and tell the family and to denounce the situation legally in the Barcelona Law Court open at night ( “Jutjat de Guardia”) .



Last year , the Osona Co-ordinator Against Torture and Labour Exploitation and the Co-ordinator Against the Abuses of Power , of Barcelona , started a petition to get signatures so that the Association of Lawyers of Barcelona sides with Francesc Arnau and the collectives in favour of the rights of prisoners so as to clarify this death in The Modelo . And , more recently , the review “Panoptic” , from the publisher “Virus” ,
has published an article very critical of the Association of Lawyers .
( See - www. Viruseditorial.net ) .



WHO IS THE ASSOCIATION OF LAWYERS COLLABORATING WITH ?



Instead of this , what has happened is that the Association of Lawyers of Barcelona has opened legal proceedings against this lawyer threatening him with a sanction of one month of being disbarred from working as a lawyer . They accuse him of having organised a campaign to denounce this latest death in prison , which is most definitely not true . But , even if he did , we believe that denouncing this grave situation in the prisons is not only a right , but is also a duty of each and every one of us .



Or is it that the Association of lawyers makes common cause with those responsible ,
directly or indirectly , for these deaths ? With those from the most reactionary , domineering , and aggressive , sector of the screws ? Needless to say , the present director of The Model prison is Antonio Gutiérrez who precisely shared the Sub-directorship of the internal regime with Carlos España when Cana Verdejo was found dead and that of late has been denounced publicly as being accustomed to wander around all the prison with a pistol .






How is it that the Association of Lawyers refuses to protect its own members from the repression they might suffer by the sole fact of only wanting to get to the truth by clarifying the facts of what happened .


And the deaths in prison don´t stop . Without going any further , another prisoner died the 5th April last , Miguel Ángel , in the Zuera prison ( Zaragoza ) , before he could be attended to by a doctor .


By everything just expressed , the people and collectives signed below ,


DEMAND :


1) - That the Association of Lawyers of Barcelona assume the responsibilities which
are duly theirs in the defence of the Human Rights of the people imprisoned behind
bars .


2) - That the Association support its very own members before retaliations and
reprisals whom they are the victim of as a direct result of undertaking a dignified
defence of those imprisoned .


3) - Consequently , that this Association close the file , without taking any further steps,
of the disciplinary complaint made against Francesc Arnau i Arias to whom
reference has already been made .


Vic & Barcelona - 24th April 2005 .



SIGNED :


NAMES :


PLACE OF ORIGIN :

Send it to the Col·legi d´Advocats of Barcelona : craj-AT-icab.es , or FAX :
93 487 19 38 . Please send a copy to the Koordinadora d´Osona kontra la tortura i
l´explotació laboral : pluja-AT-latinmail.com