Recent ruling could send him back to jail for two more months

Prison overpopulation is seen by several international organizations as a violation of human rights of the prisoners. The European Committee on Crime (1999) found that prison populations with a density higher than 120% have serious problems of overcrowding (*). When Javier left the Ibarra jail in February 2015, it had an overpopulation of more than 300%.

It is at this to this kind of setting, misnamed the Ibarra Social Rehabilitation Center, where the Ecuadorian judicial system now wants Javier to return two serve two more months of prison based on the on the April 16, 2015 sentence.

The latest outrage is a result of the appeal lodged by the national mining company Enami to the February 2015 ruling in which Javier was sentenced to 12 months in prison, but which was reduced to 10 months due good behavior and for having a clean criminal record. Recall that this ruling came the day Javier spent 10 months in prison without trial or sentence, and where he was released thanks to the social pressures of the people in the streets.

Javier submitted his own appeal asking to be acquitted, but the judges – as in the original lawsuit – only validated the arguments of the company. Incredibly among other “crimes”, which according to lawyers of the mining company Enami justify the longer sentence and a return to jail, was insulting public employees which proved that there was a prior agreement or conspiracy to keep Enami from working. Incredibly, the judges agreed with the arguments of the company and used them to justify its disastrous decision.

Faced with this new outrage, the lawyer Javier Ramiro Roman, filed a cassation, which halts the implementation of the ruling until another court examines the ruling for judicial errors. This process normally lasts two to three months. If the court rejects the cassation, Javier can be arrested and imprisoned again.