By Brendan Oliver Bergh
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America
LIMA, Peru – Forgotten, and alone, Juan Navarro languished in a Peruvian prison for 37 years without ever being convicted. Charged with murder in 1976, he was incarcerated in the Lurigancho prison on August 3 of that year, where he would remain until his story was revealed, without a court date or trial.
His brain has to fail him as the 76 or possibly 78 year old man has the signs of dementia and can no longer remember details about his life. Only that he has been in prison surviving against the harsh conditions and that he has been incarcerated, “They ruined my teeth from so many hits and they chased me with a knife. … They wanted to slit my throat,” the problem with his incarceration, is that no one knows how he got to be there. Prison and judiciary officials have no information or records concerning his imprisonment and confinement. A prison riot destroyed any records that would lead to information concerning his crime, or family.
Having spent 37 years in prison, he has officially spent more time in prison than Peruvian statutory regulations allow. Peruvian criminal sentencing statutes do not allow for a sentence over 35 years. Peruvian law also dictates that if you are imprisoned for over 36 months without an official sentence you would be freed. So even had Mr. Navarro been sentenced to the maximum possible sentence for the crime of murder, he would have had have been released two years ago. However these loopholes require someone to file paperwork on your behalf in order to streamline the process. Unfortunately until Mr. Navarro’s story was revealed on the radio, he had no family in order to file his writ.
These violations of habeas corpus are nothing new to Latin American prisons. According to the prison director at the San Pendro prison in Lima, only 1,291 prisoners of the approximately 8,6000 inmates have been sentenced.
Before anyone had the opportunity to file a writ of habeas corpus for Mr. Navarro the government took a proactive step and released the inmate. Demented and without family, Mr. Navarro has been taken in by residential care center that takes care of the elderly that have been forgotten and neglected by society.
For more information, please see:
CNN – 37 Years In Prison, But Was He Sentenced? – 15 April 2013
La Republica – Freedom Granted To Oldest Lurigancho Prisoner – 11 April 2013
Peru 21 – Freed Old Man Who Was Imprisoned 37 Years Without Trial – 10 April 2013
RPP – Judiciary has Immediate Reease of Juan Navarro Acuna – 10 April 2013
