Communiqué from Amadeu Casellas on Ninth Circuit Court sentence
From Tokata:
May 7, 2010
Well, it seems I always have to find out about myself from the mass media. In this case, my friends called to tell me the Circuit’s sentence was published by Europa Press.
Of course, my lawyer Maite Fernández also tried to call me, but since I was working, she couldn’t reach me. She finally gave me the news when she was able to get in touch. The Provincial Court of Barcelona is sentencing me to three years in prison for a crime against public welfare, to three years of prison because they consider it proven that Y.B.P.—my girlfriend at the time, also sentenced to three years—and I deliberately attempted to smuggle heroin into Quatre Camins prison. Allow me to laugh. Ha, ha, ha.
I think the first thing the Provincial Court of Barcelona, and more specifically the Ninth Circuit, should have asked is: How is it possible that the state’s henchmen (in this case the Mossos d’Esquadra)—my apologies to current Justice Councilor Montserrat Tura (again I laugh: ha, ha, ha)—already knew, the same day, that some jailer or Mosso d’Esquadra had handed my girlfriend Y.B.P. one, two, or who knows how many packets, with the message that she had to pass them on to me?
The Court refuses to allow my lawyer Maite to investigate either my phone calls from prison or the calls made by the unknown person who gave this or that packet to Y.B.P. The Court regards the initial tests made on said packet(s), which first came out white (a crystal-clear positive result for cocaine) and then came out brown (a positive result for heroin) as irrelevant. How pathetic.
But even more pathetic was the attitude of the prosecutor, who only asked me if I was a user. When I told him no, he then said the heroin was for distribution inside the prison. The truth isn’t as important to him as trying to condemn me. A fascist system like this doesn’t look for the truth, it only looks to get rid of half the entire anarchist movement.
I therefore congratulate that fascist prosecutor, and also remind him that I do not give in to fascist abuse. This isn’t over, it’s just begun. I now know that for fascists like you, the fact of having held me hostage in your death camps with your jailer henchmen—exploiters of the workers—doesn’t matter. What you’re really trying to do is silence me again. But I’m not afraid of your lackeys on the outside or the inside. They’re too gutless to scare me.
To conclude this communiqué, I must add that Y.B.P. is not my wife. I have been a widower for over 13 years, and I obviously didn’t marry again in prison.
This case will reach the Supreme Court on appeal, and I hope they have their heads on straight and pardon me for what I never should have been accused of in the first place. Because apart from being pathetic, it’s disgraceful that a state calling itself a democratic monarchy continues to pursue ideals that would unimaginably delight the Francoist regime, which certainly left everything well under control. As always, the bourgeois, capitalist, fascist class continues to harass the working class with impunity. One only has to look at Félix Millet from the Palau de la Música; the Gurtel case; the Palma Arena; the Pretoria case, which features the regime’s torturers, like General Galindo; the Laza and Zabala case, which involved GAL (Antiterrorist Liberation Groups); Javier de la Rosa; etc.
Finally, regarding this case, I urge everyone caught with something deemed illegal by this fascist state’s laws—at whatever airport, port, or customs office—to use your right to not incriminate yourself and to not confess guilt. Just say it’s for King Juan Carlos I or the flunkies on duty in this case—José Rodríguez Zapatero for the Spanish state and José Montilla for Catalunya—and we’ll see if they’re sitting next to me in the dock.
To health, and to anarchy.
—Amadeu Casellas Ramon, 5/5/10
Amadeu Casellas and wife sentenced to three years in prison
From Tokata via Europa Press:
May 4, 2010
The Court of Barcelona has sentenced anarchist ex-prisoner Amadeu Casellas and his wife Yamileth B.P. to three years in prison for attempting to smuggle heroin into Quatre Camins.
The ruling substantiates the events of April 6, 2008, which began when the Mossos d’Esquadra were getting ready to search Casellas’ wife prior to a requested conjugal visit.
At that moment, the woman, “showing signs of anxiety,” broke down and handed the officers two heroin packets that were intended for Casellas.
The judge emphasized the fact that Yamileth B.P. handed the heroin—two packets of 6 and 8.9 grams with a total value of 944 Euros—over to the officers voluntarily.
Even though the transfer was prevented, the ninth circuit Court judge believes that Yamileth B.P. “was persuaded” by Casellas to smuggle the 14.9 grams of heroin she was hiding.
Casellas was in prison for over 25 years. He was jailed for the first time in 1979 after a series of bank robberies, although he is also known for his anarchist views. His release was granted two months ago, but during his time as a prisoner he undertook three hunger strikes in order to demand improvements in prison conditions.
During the trial, Casellas explained that he didn’t fear a return to prison since, even if found guilty, he wouldn’t be going back to jail because: “They owe me eight years.” “I spent eight years too many, so what they have to do is give me a refund,” he emphasized in a statement to Europa Press.
According to the ex-prisoner, on April 2, 2009 he was granted leave from prison. He was then told on April 8 that he could not go because he was being indicted on suspicion of drug trafficking for “something that happened on the outside” while he was “locked up in prison.” “It’s a story they pulled out of their sleeves,” he explained.
The ruling sentences Casellas and his wife to three years in prison with a fine of 2400 Euros, despite the prosecutor’s request for an eight-year sentence.
Communiqué from J.C. Rico on the release of M. Pinteño and A. Casellas
From Tokata:
March 26, 2010
Today I found out that Manuel Pinteño and Amadeu Casellas are FREE. Personally, even though I’ve never met them, this news fills me with joy. Yet it hasn’t pushed me into a state of euphoria. The fascist, thieving, oppressor state hasn’t given these comrades a gift. On the contrary, it has “stolen” the best years of their lives. And in dealing with these two people, as well as with comrade Joaquín Garcés, it has completely crossed the threshold of IT’S OWN existing laws regarding sentencing terms.
I’m not just happy for Manuel and Amadeu. I’m also happy for their families and loved ones, because this atrocious ordeal is over for them as well. But on the other hand, it saddens me to be reminded each day that the prison/murder industry inexorably continues to function at full throttle, leaving behind a stream of death, suffering, torture, and insanity. This fact should lead us neither to complacency nor to the delusion that “the system works just fine; it has its flaws, but it works.” That’s not the case. Nothing can be said to work when the very reasons for its existence, the principles that regulate its operation, are based on inequality and crime.
Therefore, I want to express my delight at the release of these two comrades, but I again want to repeat that while a single prisoner exists, while a single prison/living hell exists, while the State exists, we will continue to be “cannon fodder” for the death industry.
For this very reason, I insist on fire to the system. I’m calling for an increase in actions against it on an international level, not through “days of struggle,” but through permanent war all over the planet. We will always find one another there. Only through violent confrontation will we manage to Free ourselves from all their gallows, from all their executioners, from wholesale legalized murder. The rest is . . . I’m refraining from judgments so as not to hurt others’ feelings.
Free Tamara.
From Valdemoro prison slaughterhouse, isolation block.
—Juan Carlos Rico Rodríguez
Amadeu Casellas set free [UPDATE 2]
Sources: Klinamen, Accions per Amadeu Casellas, Tokata, VilaWeb, e-notícies, El Periódico, Hommodolars Contrainformación, Crúz Negra Anarquista DF
March 9, 2010
Amadeu Casellas walked out of Girona prison this afternoon after 24 years behind bars.
Justice Department sources revealed that a 2008 Constitutional Court decision, in which it was ruled that time served in preventive detention should count toward a prisoner’s final sentence, has finally been applied to Casellas’ case. After a sentence recalculation based on statutory discrepancies between the old and new penal codes, authorities concluded that Casellas had already served eight years too many, and released him today—some six years ahead of his scheduled 2016 release date.
Sources close to Casellas explained that his defense had long been petitioning for a sentence reduction that would correspond to the years he spent in preventive detention, but the Justice Department “always denied” that Casellas was serving any excess time.
While behind bars, Casellas engaged in many lengthy hunger strikes (including one just last year) in order to protest the “unfulfilled promises of Prison Services” and “poor condition of Catalan prisons.” In addition, he actively participated in a number of prison riots.
Casellas discovered anarchism at age 14, and was originally imprisoned in 1979. He was in the midst of serving several sentences for a series of bank robberies, the last of which he carried out in 2006 while on leave from prison. The money from the various robberies was used to finance labor and social struggles, with Casellas dividing the money among people and organizations that, in his own words, “needed it.” He eventually came to be known as “the Spanish Robin Hood.”
Current information about Amadeu Casellas (February 2010)
From Klinamen:
February 12, 2010
In a letter from Amadeu dated February 5, 2010, he tells us that, together with the Girona prison warden and a legal expert, they have figured out the number of days of preventative detention that should be subtracted from the 37-year sentence Amadeu is serving for several bank robberies during the 1980s. Amadeu’s sentence was set for 2016 after an earlier reduction due to credit earned for work.
After calculating the amount of preventative detention that must still be deducted from his sentence, it was determined that, not counting the time he’s already been credited, he is still owed over 4000 days.
His lawyers have already petitioned to credit him some of these days, and Amadeu himself has written a report to the courts detailing the total number of days he feels he should be credited. If one were to compare the years already logged by Amadeu to the time he should be credited, it would reveal that the general administration of Catalan prisons has made him serve a sentence several years too long.
According to Amadeu, they owe him almost 12 years of credit for preventative detention served. That’s why they need to add six more years to the six years they’ve already subtracted from his total sentence.
Amadeu has been demanding his freedom for years, but the Councilor of Justice and the General Administration of Catalan Prison Services have not only denied him all possibility of release, but have also intensified the conditions of his imprisonment by depriving him of contact with his friends and comrades, both outside and inside prison.
Given the circumstances, Amadeu has been forced to go on several long hunger strikes in order to be heard. Just a little more than three months ago, Amadeu abandoned a hunger strike he had maintained for 99 days, and in the middle of January he planned to begin another, but dropped the idea in the hope that he would be credited with the days of preventative detention he is owed.
After sending several letters to the court, Amadeu has become aware that the prison has been notified about some of this credit, yet it has nevertheless still not been applied. For this reason, and after waiting more than a month for some response from the prison that would break the stalemate, Amadeu is considering beginning a new hunger strike on February 20, 2010 in the event that he is not set free.
Therefore, via this document, we want to bring the current situation to the attention of everyone who has expressed their solidarity. Keep an eye out for further information we will be disseminating in order to demand, once again, freedom for Amadeu Casellas.
