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<font size=3><br>
</font><font size=4>Machetero' Avelino will be extradited<br>
Jesus Davila<br>
El Diaro/La Prensa<br>
February 14, 2008<br>
<a href="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</a>
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</font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font size=4>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.<br>
</font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font size=4>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.<br>
</font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font size=4>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.<br>
</font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font size=4>"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." <br>
</font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font size=4>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.<br>
</font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font size=4>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.<br>
</font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font size=4>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.<br>
</font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font size=4>From the beginning this has all had controversial
elements for Puerto Rico.<br>
</font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font size=4>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.<br>
</font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font size=4>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.<br>
</font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font size=4>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."<br><br>
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