8 On doctor’s orders, he should exercise, but, owing to the limited space, he can only walk in the small yard of his cell, backwards and forwards, ten steps in each direction, and do squats. Even though he has suffered from severe pain in different parts of his body, only the nurse on duty visited him up until 2003. As of that year, he began to receive visits from doctors, but they do not have the necessary equipment to evaluate him adequately and do not provide him with medication, which he himself has to acquire. He has not received any type of support to help him come to terms with his death sentence. Faced with the denial of the judicial remedies he has filed and the possibility that he may be executed, the witness would prefer to kill himself before making an exhibition of himself “before the people of Guatemala and the whole world.” In order to endure his prison sentence, he thinks of his daughter and his mother, and about saving money for them, and he talks to friends within the sector. His wife was sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment, so that, despite making the respective requests, they have not seen each other since the judgment was delivered. He sometimes calls her on Tuesdays; not always, because she has to pay for the telephone calls she receives. It is not possible to study in maximum security sector 11, contrary to other sectors where primary education, baccalaureate, computer and other courses have been offered. The alleged victim believes that he is discriminated against, because he is considered a “disgrace to society.” b) Testimony of Ovidio Girón Vásquez, Mr. Raxcacó Reyes’ defense lawyer in the domestic jurisdiction The witness stated that, in 1999, he was assigned to the case of Mr. Raxcacó Reyes, in his capacity as a defense lawyer of the Appeals Unit of the Instituto de la Defensa Pública Penal de Guatemala (IDPPG). He prepared the special appeal against the judgment delivered by the Sixth Court for Criminal Sentencing, Drug-Trafficking and Environmental Crimes which had sentenced Mr. Raxcacó Reyes to death. Among other grounds, he argued that Article 4(2) of the American Convention had been violated, because the death penalty had been extended to a new crime, and because the punishment should be proportionate to the harm caused and not in excess of it. He filed an appeal for annulment against the judgment of the Fourth Chamber of the Court of Appeal before the Supreme Court of Justice and, finally, he filed a constitutional application for amparo before the Constitutional Court in its capacity as a special court of amparo. The three remedies were declared inadmissible. The witness also filed a remedy for commutation of sentence in favor of Mr. Raxcacó Reyes but, owing to the annulment of Decree No. 159, the President of the Republic refused to admit it officially, on the pretext that there was no legally established procedure and no competent authority for processing it. Currently, Mr. Raxcacó Reyes is imprisoned in sector 11 of the Zone 18 Men’s Preventive Detention Center. He was transferred to this Center to protect the prisoner and owing to the severity of his sentence. The actual conditions and regime in the detention center are very limited as regards space, and he is kept in a small