Editor’s note: La Voz Verdadera del Amate is an organization of Indigenous prisoners formed on January 5th, 2006 in the prisons CERSS No. 14 and CERSS No. 5 in Chiapas. The organization formed as a means to better coordinate struggles against irregularities and the violations of legal rights in the judicial processes of Indigenous prisoners in the state of Chiapas.
August 13, 2017
CERSS No. 14
El Amate
Cintalapa de Figueroa
We have found ourselves imprisoned in CERSS #14 “El Amate” since January 17th, 2011, accused of a homicide that we did not commit and for which we have been held for more than seven years. A few days ago, we were sentenced to 25 years in prison, without them complying to the general guidelines governing the evidence and testimonies in the due process of law.
For the Mixed Judge of the Judicial District of Bochil, Lic. Julio Cesar Victoria Méndez, the dogmatic assertions lacking documented evidence of the accusers, one of them a minor, were sufficient enough to sentence each one of us to 25 years in jail.
The accusers claim to be witnesses of a crime, when they and the deceased lived in Col. Shutal, Pueblo Nuevo Chiapas, about an hour from where the events occurred. At the same time, my brother and I were working on our parcel, an hour and a half from where the events occurred. On the other hand, in the formal record, the higher judge stated that he would not value the declaration of the accusers (for reasons I don’t remember).
Also, the accusers referred only to one of us as he who committed the crime, and the other was only a spectator. If this were true, why did the judge give the same sentence to us both? Without taking into account that one is not responsible for what the other supposedly did.
Thus, we are directing this note to the people in solidarity that until now have been attentive to our situation, to all of those that are reading our words for the first time and to the civil society in general to denounce all of the violations of our individual rights and rights of due process. During the proceedings, our rights were violated. The right to information was violated, as we never received a simple copy of the file to be able to adequately prepare our defense. Therefore the public defender was also unable to demonstrate the truth of the crimes. A sentence has been imposed upon us without carrying out the operations and analysis that an expert on the material must perform. There is no basis, legal motive, or facts that establish the likelihood of us participating in the crime. We have not been given justice within the time marked by the laws, since we have been imprisoned for more than seven years without the accusers showing interest in sharing tangible evidence of our participation in the crime. They have only presented dogmatic assertions lacking documented evidence.
Yet the judge found it sufficient to give us a sentence of 25 years. In addition, the public defender assigned to the court, lacked the interest to demonstrate our innocence and arrive to the truth of the facts. Not at any moment, neither party has sought to clarify the facts.
We ask everyone that has accompanied us, and to those that know us for the first time through these words, to be attentive to our case and to do everything possible to demand our freedom.
Abraham López Montejo
Germán López Montejo
Translated from the original here: http://noestamostodxs.tk/denuncia-de-german-y-abraham-lopez-montejo-de-la-voz-verdadera-del-amate/