Tortured by police, she serves time (a Portuguese history)

by Pedro Silva Wed Apr 10, 2013 5:22 am

My friends, this was taken from Expresso newspaper:

http://expresso.sapo.pt/torturada-por-policias-quem-vai-cumprir-pena-e-ela-uma-historia-portuguesa=f798398#ixzz2PpaN99Un

Tortured by police, she serves time (a Portuguese history)

A woman is tortured by police to confess to a crime. Confesses, and is sentenced (how reliable confession under these circumstances?), But complains of torture.

The cops are going to court. In more than one case, the court considers proven torture. But he says the woman lied in some detail. Or not he had a bag stuck on his head when he was hit with a cardboard tube? The inspector in charge was in the adjacent room or hallway? The doctor at the time you saw only the face or the whole body? At various times, the woman presented different versions on these aspects.

Because of the differences, perhaps more important than the fact that someone suffers torture in the facilities of Portuguese police, the woman is sentenced to seven months in prison. The court acknowledges that she was tortured, but it is worth applying for misrepresentation. And expressly disclaims replace it with a fine, given that, as regards the sentence, the defendant has a history, has committed a very serious crime (infanticide), with the eighth year of execution of sentence, and even that "was enough to ward off the route delinquents, "as the sentence," continuing to show no respect for Community rules and averse personality should be 'legal'.

The torturers, these (those who were convicted because some were not identified), got away with a suspended sentence. And popular opinion agrees, because there is no forgiveness for what the woman did. The legal criterion blameless, obviously.

All this can be justified, or at least justifiable, the formal point of view. But what conclusion will draw a lot of people about democracy in which they live, to see that in a case of police torture, more process less process, the only person who will actually serve time in prison is the person who was tortured?