13 a. Testimony of María Teresa De La Cruz Flores, alleged victim She studied medicine and graduated in 1979. She married Danilo Blanco Cabeza, from whom she separated in 1988 and she has two children, Danilo and Ana Teresa. From 1984 and until her detention in 1996, she worked in the Cincha Polyclinic. Her husband, who worked with the newspaper, El Diario, when it circulated legally, was detained in 1988, charged with defense (apologia) of terrorism. A month later, he was liberated because there were insufficient grounds for a trial. These circumstances had consequences in both their lives, and they even separated that same year. She then had to cover the financial needs of her household alone. In 1990, she was detained in her place of work, when she intervened to avoid a fight between two people who were struggling, and who she believed to be patients; she was accused of being an accomplice of one of the individuals who was allegedly putting up “pegatinas.”11 She was detained in the Castro Castro Prison for three months, until she was granted unconditional release “after she had proved [her] innocence in court.” This episode affected her significantly; however, she resumed her work and attended several training courses and other professional activities. In 1992, she learned that her husband had been detained once again. Two years later he was liberated, because it was considered that res judicata existed, in relation to the facts with which he was associated. Mr. Blanco subsequently requested political asylum abroad. In March 1996, the witness was detained when she was leaving work, taken to the Police Headquarters and, from there, to the Requisition Office located on Avenida Canada. Her family learned of her detention through a colleague who was present during the events. After one night in the Requisition Office, she was taken to the court and the case files could not be found; she spent several hours there before the judge questioned her. Subsequently, she was taken to the Chorrillos High-Security Women’s Prison (hereinafter “the Chorrillos Prison”), where she has been detained ever since. In the Chorrillos Prison she was isolated and incommunicado and could not see either her lawyer or her mother for one month. Her children could visit her once every three months; during the first year, her children did not visit her because it would have been very difficult for them to see their mother in those conditions. Once a month, she was given 30 minutes to write to her family, which she had to do in the penumbra of her cell. She was able to verify that sometimes the letters did not reach their destination. Despite several requests, she was never able to receive a face-to-face visit; visits took place in the locutorio which was very uncomfortable, including the visits of her mother, who is quite elderly. In the prison, there was little food and it was not nutritious. During her first year of detention, she was only allowed out into the exercise yard for 30 minutes a day; she could not use paper, pencil or watch; she had no access to magazines, newspapers, radio or television and was only allowed to read the Bible and certain classics. She was not allowed to have medical books or medical journals in her field of 11 “1.f. Adhesivo pequeño que lleva impresa propaganda política, comercial, etc.” [Small sticker with political, commercial propaganda, etc.], Diccionario de la Real Academia Española.