14 specialization. When she arrived at the prison, she was suffering from diarrhea and fever and only received treatment two weeks after the first symptoms appeared. She could only ask “the police personnel for [what she needed], so that they could communicate this to the INPE [the National Penitentiary Institute] personnel; they only did this in cases of extreme need.” Her mother, who was 80 years of age, was left in charge of her children. Her family has experienced and continues to experience financial difficulties; the expenses, including those for her children’s education, were met from her mother’s retirement pension and sporadic help from some of her next of kin. During the first year, she demanded to know more about her case file, through her lawyer; he encountered significant problems in accessing this file, so they had difficulty finding out the details of her detention. The alleged victim knew that the charges were related to allegedly providing medical care to terrorists or their next of kin, but neither she nor her lawyer knew the identity of those people. In October 1996, she was called before the “faceless” Terrorism Chamber for her trial, but without having had the opportunity to prepare her defense, owing to the lack of information about the charges and the individuals who had presumably accused her. The judges that tried her were behind a mirror, and she only heard their distorted voices; even the questions they asked her were incomprehensible. During the oral proceeding there were no witnesses who incriminated her, she was merely accused by the prosecutor and the Government attorney. Moreover, none of her patients or an “arrepentido” (repentant terrorism or treason convict) was present to state that she was guilty. Despite this, she was convicted. In the witness’s opinion, greater importance was give to the affirmations in the police deposition than to the trial itself. Also, the tribunal took into account that both she and her husband had been detained previously. The purpose of the trial was “above all, to convict any physician who dared provide [help] to ‘a terrorist’ and this was done using [her].” Her lawyer requested a pardon; but, this was not granted because a criminal prosecution was pending against her from 1990, which had not yet been heard in an oral proceeding; moreover, the case file had been lost. At that time, her sister, Alcira, had to interrupt her postgraduate studies in Brazil to take over the alleged victim’s legal procedures, because her mother was unable to continue handling them. After her sister had tried unsuccessfully to find the 1990 case file, it was reconstructed, on the initiative of her defense lawyer, based on copies kept by her previous lawyer. In 1998, she was tried for the case opened in 1990. She was accused of having ordered the young man, with whom she had been detained that year, to prepare the “pegatina.” In this proceeding, she was sentenced to ten years, because she had a record. Approximately one year later, the Supreme Court declared this proceeding annulled. Her case was then submitted to the international level.