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WITNESS FOR THE DEFENCE

When the witness came in, I stopped breathing for a few seconds. It was Colonel Lanza! I stared at him in disbelief. I hadn't seen him since my arrest at the airport, but I recognised him immediately. It had been four-and-a-half years, but he hadn't changed. I kept staring at him, thinking it couldn't possibly be true. He looked calmly around the court. He even looked directly at me, but as soon as he spoke, there was no doubt.

'Yes. I swear,' he said, when the clerk of the court asked him if he swore on the bible to tell the truth. Next, he was asked to state his name.

'Colonel Mario Toro Lanza.' Manuelo panicked slightly and turned to me. He was worried because the colonel's surname wasn't Velasco. But it was too much of a coincidence not to be true.

'Brother-in-law,' I whispered.

When it was his turn to cross-examine, Manuelo asked Colonel Lanza detailed questions about the supposed undercover operation. But Lanza had already thought of almost every possible question and how to answer it.

'Who was in charge of the operation?' Manuelo asked.
'I was.'
'Who else knew about the operation?'
'I am unable to say. That's classified information.'

For some of the more specific questions, Lanza ran out of prepared answers. Every time he got into trouble, though, he always had the same escape route: 'It was a secret operation.'

My lawyer then asked why there was no record of this operation. He asked why none of the guards at San Pedro knew about it and why no one in the prison administration was informed, even when the operation had been completed. He asked why no phone call was made to external investigators once the operation had been 'successful' and why it took over a year to bring the charges. Lanza had a clever answer for those questions as well: 'It would have compromised the safety of the undercover operatives.'

At that point, Lanza also mentioned the great risk that the Velascos had taken in attempting to bring me to justice. He informed the court that it had come to his attention that I had deliberately exposed his operatives to grave danger by illegally obtaining copies of their statements and distributing them within the prison with the intention of