Despite the wave of polar cold, yesterday at two o'clock in the afternoon a group of thirty people crowded on the sidewalk waiting for Unit 9 in La Plata the arrival of members of the Federal Oral Court No. 1. They were summoned to perform an inspection as part of the trial that is being made against prison fourteen accused of crimes against humanity during the dictatorship.

Some smoked, and others waited in silence, go back to places where they were detained for more than thirty years. There were witnesses who testified in hearings that are held in April in the former AMIA. Some were newcomers. Others told Hugo "Puppy" Godoy, head of the CTA, they returned in 2007 to pay tribute to the thirteen and seventeen colleagues relatives of detainees at the U9, killed during the dictatorship. They put a plaque with their names and named the street in front, the 76th, with the name of the mother of "Manzanita" Avilez de Elizalde Delia Leal.

Built in 1960, the jail facade retains the same time, only that it is very poor. The white paint is yellow, the walls are wet. Upon admission, after spending several doors gates, you come to the hall where flags converge. On the left is the one now called "family meeting." There are children's drawings and, on the yellow wall, an inscription that reads "No person in this world who loves you like me." The cells there were changed: where once there were two, now there is only one and there is a double bed with a small table. There is also a toilet. However, the Third Elijah Muse priest recalled that he was detained in the first cell, and placing her hand on on-sight, told members of the Court how he saw when he was taken from the cell next to Dardo Cabo, shot that night an alleged escape attempt.

To the right of the main hall, the pavilion two "is the same," says Suarez Dalmiro. The cells remain small and have double door painted yellow. Some are occupied by common criminals who look through the hole in the serving hatch to the people who runs the place. Nestor Rojas stops at one door and repeat the previous scene: "Over here, I saw they removed it to Segali."

From the hall you can see the patios. One is the same: "At the bench we sat down to play chess," says Suarez. The other is changed, it has some divisions and on a far wall is a mural with caricatures of Videla, Massera and Agosti, Camps and Etchecolatz. Below the inscription "The report points to them, history will condemn." As one moves down the aisle, cold again feel like outdoors.

Those who were the "pigs" are now called "separation Pavilion area of coexistence" and remain the punishment cells. There are prisoners punished, those who have just arrived voluntarily or require some kind of isolation, account for two agents of the Federal Penitentiary. Cells are 2.10 by 1.80, with a sort of concrete bench and a toilet that once must have been white. They detainees from that well that is just as infectious and should get the water to drink, every time a guard from outside, decided to release the jet. In the "pigs" everything is about the same, but now there is a tap and smell of fresh paint.

If wards one and two, in the years of Abel Dupuy, prisoners are housed members of the force defined as "sunk" at thirteen and fourteen had to "recovered moderately." These halls feel the cold so intense as in an open and so were known as "Siberia." The window panes are broken or not, the floor is wet, the peeling walls. Carlos Alvarez Carlos grabs the arm Rozanski, president of the Court, and tells him that he was in one of these cells. "The floor was three inches of water and had a partner who was asthmatic. They were flags that enabled high school because they were not able. They put two or three people in a place that was for barely one. "

Prosecutors, public attorneys and piled in a circle to hear the story. Rozanski, Robert Falcone, Mario Alberto Portela-judges who complete the TOF1-listened in silence. Further back, the defense lawyers expected, along with the accused Raúl Aníbal Rebaynera, Catalino Morel and Hector Acuña, your turn for inspection. The other former members of the Prison Service being tried, Abel Dupuy, Jorge Luis Peratta, Ramon Fernandez, Isabel Vega, Elvio Cossa, Valentin Romero, Víctor Andrés Ríos and Second Basualdo chose not to attend. Nor did the doctors charged Juri Carlos Domingo, and Luis Enrique Leandro Corsi Favole Sunday.

At the conclusion of the tour, the presiding judge told Página/12 "It was positive because it could ensure that all parties were, to observe and toured what was needed to go. It is a very important complement that lets you see in picture, to appreciate, which was heard during the trial. Then everyone can draw their conclusions. " On leaving prison, former detainee Roberto Páez reflected: "You walk through places where he was confined, where he had to walk with his head bowed, hands behind his back, cornered, pressured constantly. I remembered when I was there. I wondered how she overcome that and I recited poems. All I remembered the poems he repeated. And then invented. I thought there was no need to despair because it was not the end. " Finally, Paez said: "We think we fell in prison for a different country. That helped us not break us, to show them that we would not get beaten but dreams intact. Seeing fellow here with the same strengths, with the optimism always excites me. Life gave us a test and I think we overcome. "