Name: Alejandro Zerpa
Arbitrarily detained: June 17, 2015
Released: December 23, 2017
Place of confinement: El Helicoide
Occupation: Student
Alejandro voluntarily went to El Helicoide facilities when he was arrested, on June 17, 2015. The Supreme Court of Justice accused him without proof of financing terrorism, a position that left him behind bars for more than two years.
He suffered torture while in detention. On September 25, 2017, he underwent surgery at the Military Hospital to correct a severe injury to the cervical area. He was waiting for the operation from December 5, 2016, when the measure was requested after being brutally beaten by Sebin officials. “The pain is so intense that he told me he would do anything to take it from him, and that includes attacking his own life,” said his lawyer, Carlos Daniel Moreno, before the operation.
Moreno demanded that the recovery of the operation be carried out outside El Helicoide in respect to Article 83 of the Constitution. However, the authorities ignored all requests made by the defense and by human rights organizations.
The student leader sewed his mouth and went on a hunger strike, as a protest measure to demand the release of all political prisoners in July 2017. “My protest for freedom will never cease to be ours, because even behind bars, never we have stopped being free of spirit”.
He was released on the eve of Christmas Eve 2017, as part of a measure granted by the National Constituent Assembly. The injuries left by the tortures he lived in prison will accompany him for the rest of his life.
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