December 29, 2018
Activist Milagro Sala returned home Saturday after the provincial court of Jujuy in Argentina ordered her transfer from prison in line with previous rulings from the Supreme Court and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
The decision was issued after Sala’s lawyers requested her release from prison and after she was acquitted of dubious homicide charges. The activist and former legislator was accused of hiring a hitman in a case known as the “Shooting of Azopardo,” which took place on Oct. 27, 2007.
She is still under investigation for alleged illicit association, fraud, and extortion. Charges against her were levied days after being detained in early 2016 for allegedly instigating violence during a protest against Jujuy Governor Gerardo Morales, which she didn’t attend.
Sala is considered by her supporters as president Mauricio Macri’s first political prisoner and human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have argued her detention was “arbitrary.“
She will continue to be under preventive detention.
Sala will remain home, this time without the restrictions imposed by judge Pablo Pullen who had her under surveillance from state security forces and forced her to live in a home in El Carmen, far from the city’s downtown area. This time she will only have an electronic bracelet as a control measure.
Governor Morales called the ruling “shameful” via Twitter and insisted Sala was a “criminal.” “If there is something we all know is the violence they used when they stole from the people,” Morales said in a reference unrelated to the alleged murder case.
On Thursday, Milagro Sala announced she will run against Morales in the 2019 regional elections. Sala said she wants to improve the living conditions of the people of Jujuy, where she says there’s “no democracy or freedom, only hunger.”
Sala is one of the founders and leaders of the Tupac Amaru Neighborhoods’ Organization, which provided housing and other services to informal workers and working-class sectors since 1999.
Source: teleSur