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On the date of the facts, her brother Martín was imprisoned in pavilion 4B of the
criminal center Castro Castro in preventive detention. On Wednesday May 6, 1992,
after hearing the news on the radio, she went to the criminal center and could
observe that the prisoners were being bombed while the crowd of family members
screamed that the “killing stop”. She could notice that “the prosecutor was there,
watching how defenseless prisoners were being bombed since the first day.”
The police started shooting and throwing tear gas bombs to the group of family
member that were located on the outsides of the criminal center, made up mostly by
women since it was a women’s visiting day. Many of them were pregnant, with
children, or were elderly. The witness, who was 9 months pregnant, fell down and
was run over by the crowd who was trying to escape from the gunshots and the tear
gas bombs. She thought she was going to lose her baby and therefore decided to
return home.
As a result of the “heartbreaking” anguish experimented, “she unconsciously
retain[ed her] delivery.” She gave birth on May 10, 1992. What she experimented
those days had an impact on her daughter who has been receiving psychological
treatment and has developed fear toward people. The witness does not have
economic resources to pay for this treatment and she wants her daughter to receive
professional help.
Three weeks after giving birth, the witness went to the criminal center to see her
brother, who was injured, but she was not allowed to visit him. It was not until
August or September that she was able to see him for the first time, but only
through some fences. Her brother is finally being tried, after having been imprisoned
for 15 years awaiting a conviction.
5.
Osilia Ernestina Cruzatt widow of Juárez, mother of the alleged
victim Deodato Hugo Juárez Cruzatt
Her son was detained in the Criminal Center Castro Castro and “he was a leader
among the political prisoners.” She visited him on Wednesdays and Saturdays and
she could notice that he seemed “yellow and was in skin and bones.”
On Wednesday May 6, 1992 she went to visit her son in the criminal center, but she
was not able to go in because the militants and police officers were throwing tear gas
bombs and they impeded their entry. Her son died on “the day before Mother’s Day.”
She went to recover his body at the morgue, where she observed bodies that were
“burned beyond recognition.” Se also observed “a friend of [her] son, […] named
Elvia [who was] dead,” “[h]er stomach was swollen and they had taken out her
nails.” When she found her son’s body, she noticed that “[h]is chest had been
transfixed with bayonets through the back. […] He had 6 or 7 bullet wounds in the
chest [and] back […, t]hey had blown or cut off his penis,” and they had shot him in
the head. She was able to obtain an order to remove the body and she buried her
son on that same day, for which she had to ask for a “$2,500” loan.
The consequences of the traumatic death of her son have been difficult to face. For
her children “it was not easy to find work due to their surnames[; …] the simple fact
of being Hugo’s brothers, who died in the way he did, put [them] in a difficult
situation.” She suffers from arthrosis, one of her arms does not work correctly, and
she also suffers from emotional pressure and cardiac insufficiency.