Rafael Amargo, after leaving prison, reveals through tears: “I haven’t used drugs for a year”

With four bags of clothes, a TV and many hugs. This is how it came out Rafael Amargo of prison. Surrounded by his family and accompanied by his lawyer, Marcos García Montes, this Friday the dancer left the Soto del Real prison where he was admitted last November and did so through tears: “I want to thank the court for understanding my words, which were very clear, and also to the public officials, police… who are not all like others that I have pointed out… A hug for the people I leave in the therapeutic module and for my children… who I’m emotional,” he said on the verge of crying.

Dressed in a black suit and white shirt, Amargo stopped with the journalists who were waiting for him to leave and treated them with great kindness: “A prison is a prison but I have felt a lot of love from all the inmates. Now I have to start from scratch, but I am going to start by eating a hamburger and sunbathing on a terrace”he said happily.

The dancer, who joined Proyecto Hombre’s prison program to detoxify, is proud to begin this new stage: “I have not used drugs for a year and I have completed a master’s degree in drug addiction. We must take care of the prison reintegration system. The man who entered here five months ago is not the man who leaves today. I am a different person in manners, ways of speaking and everything. Now I just want to hug my children because they have suffered a lot and so have my parents.” And he also boasts of his good physique: “I have lost a few pounds and I am very handsome.”

Sure of his innocence, he anticipates that he will appeal any sentence that is not acquittal: “I have nothing to hide and I only hope that justice is done. There are no indications of anything, it’s all assumptions, they took out my intimacies, my conversations… “I am very grateful to the court, I trust the judges and I will appeal to whatever extent necessary, I will persecute corrupt people.”

Amargo wants to recover his life away from Soto del Real and anticipates: “You will soon see me on stage and I have also written a fiction book.”

Waiting for sentence

The Provincial Court of Madrid has released without precautionary measures Rafael Amargo until there is a sentence for the trial that concluded this Friday for alleged drug trafficking in his apartment in Malasaña. It must be remembered that this measure was agreed upon at the request of the Prosecutor’s Office to ensure the holding of the trial and, once held, he was released. Since November he remained in the Soto del Real prison in Madrid.

Amargo faces nine years in prison for a crime against public health of notorious importance. Its producer Eduardo de Santos, who was also in preventive detention, faces the same request for a sentence. Investigators and the Madrid Prosecutor’s Office maintain that Rafael Amargo and Eduardo de Santos made “joint purchases” of drugs intended to finance the work of Barren. It was before the premiere of this work, in December 2020, when the artist was arrested. In his turn, Eduardo de Santos has called it “atrocious” that it is stated that the play Barren was financed with the alleged drug trafficking, asserting that the National Police and the Prosecutor’s Office “lie” in their accusations. When asked if she has bought drugs with Rafael, she answered that he “never.” “We were drug addicts. We talked about drugs and the play Yerma. What are we going to talk about,” she blurted out.

The dancer, for his part, has denied all the charges: “The only thing I do is give away my art and my generosity in my house, opening the doors to everyone, like Lola Flores. They have tried to kill me with this trial.”