[Ppnews] Puerto Rico - Avelino to be extradited

[Political Prisoner News]

Machetero' Avelino will be extradited
Jesus Davila
El Diaro/La Prensa
February 14, 2008
<http://www.eldiariony.com/noticias/detail.aspx?section=20&desc=Nuestros%20PaC-ses&id=1812557>http://www.eldiariony.com/noticias/detail.aspx?section=20&desc=Nuestros%20PaC-ses&id=1812557

SAN JUAN/ EDLP correspondent The independentisst Avelino Gonzalez 
Claudio, captured last Friday [sic], after 22 years of avoiding 
arrest for the Wells Fargo case, has received a strange prisoner 
number with the suffix 000 and his lawyer expressed yesterday his 
fear that this may have something to do with the Department of 
Homeland Security.

Gonzalez Claudio will be extradited to Hartford, Connecticut, with 
full security after the visit set for February 21 in the courtroom of 
federal magistrate Marcos Lopez, although if he is granted the bond 
being requested by the defense, he would have the opportunity to 
appear on his own to be judged for the theft of seven million dollars 
from Wells Fargo, which occurred in 1983, and face a penalty of up to 
275 years in prison.

Since his arrest in the city of Manati, on the northern coast, the 
case of Gonzalez Claudio who the Federal Bureau of Prisonns alleges 
is a member of the Popular Boricua Army - Macheteros, the 
organization which claimed responsibility for the theft has raised a 
whole series of conflictive situations. Among them, the fact that his 
cell has been covered with a metal door and a metal screen on the 
window, which prevents him from seeing daylight and from knowing 
whether it is day or night.

"These are unacceptable and unnecessary conditions," said his 
attorney Juan Ramon Acevedo, who explained that under these 
conditions of confinement, "little by little the person becomes disoriented."

The most unusual situation of all, however, is related to his 
official prison identification, which doesn't correspond to any 
jurisdiction in the United States.

Attorney Acevedo told EL DIARIO/LA PRENSA the significance of this 
classification, in that the prisoner number ends in 000, and he said 
that in his 32 years of representing criminal cases in the U.S. 
federal courts, "never, never, none" of the prisoners he has 
represented has this kind of number. He explained that the last three 
numbers identify the jurisdiction in which the prisoner entered the 
prison system, and that for Puerto Rico the number is 069.

He indicated that his office looked up this suffix in the official 
list of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, and it does not appear. Also, 
when he went to see him in prison, the guards on duty thought the 
number had to be incorrect, until it turned out that, indeed, 
Gonzalez Claudio is now prisoner number 000. "We suspect this has 
something to do with Homeland Security," said the attorney.

 From the beginning this has all had controversial elements for Puerto Rico.

Gonzalez Claudio was not originally stopped by the FBI, but by a 
Puerto Rico national Police patrol, which ordered him to stop his 
car. It was then that five FBI vehicles appeared, with a contingent 
for the formal capture, according to attorney Acevedo's account.

Next came the matter of the covered cell, maintaining him handcuffed 
and surveilled during attorney visits in a room that is not usually 
used for such purpose, and now the identification number.

Gonzalez Claudio asked the court to order that he be tried in Puerto 
Rico, but attorney Acevedo said that in reality the only thing that 
is pending is the matter of bond, and the possibility that they grant 
his request to stay in Puerto Rico is "nil. That's not going to happen."



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