'Parapolitics' senator released 3 months after given a 7.5 year sentence

[Judi Lynn]

'Parapolitics' senator released 3 months after given a 7.5 year sentence
Wednesday, 15 June 2011 13:05
Tom Heyden

Former Colombian Senator Ciro Ramirez has been granted freedom just three months after being sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for paramilitary ties, despite allegedly falsifying documents that would reduce his original sentence.

Ex-Conservative Senator Ramirez, who was sentenced on March 10 for having made an alliance with the Central Bolivar bloc of the AUC to help him win a seat in Congress in 2002, was surprisingly granted his release on Tuesday by a Bogota judge who deemed that he had completed three-fifths of his sentence.

Ramirez was captured in February, 2008, meaning that, retroactively dated to include the time already served, he has spent just under three and a half years in prison, some way short of the four and a half years that would constitute three-fifths of a seven and a half year sentence.

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Nevertheless, Ramirez is perhaps the most controversial example of the legal opportunity for reduced sentences, after it emerged on March 30 that the disgraced senator had allegedly falsified numerous community service documents, artificially augmenting his hours of study and agricultural work.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/16995-parapolitics-senator-released-3-months-after-given-a-75-year-sentence.html