The flamenco dancer has been sleeping in jail since this Friday. He has been admitted to the Soto del Real prison after repeatedly missing the appointment that requires him to sign in court while awaiting trial for an alleged drug trafficking crime. The judge has declared a “risk of flight” and Rafael Amargo is devastated: “He didn’t expect it.”
His lawyer is already working on a petition, which they must present within three days. They allege that he is “in psychiatric treatment” and suffers from “panic attacks”, which is why he was absent from said appointments. “A sick person is going to have a very bad time in prison,” said lawyer Bárbara Royo in YAS. “He is a sick man who has no money and is not going to flee the national territory. If he has not complied with the appearances for health reasons, the panic can be proven in an appeal.”
At three o’clock in the afternoon he entered prison from the Provincial Court. First they booked him, they searched him rigorously and they transferred him to a preventive module. He has received clothing, also household clothes, and a hygiene kit. On Saturday he will have to leave the cell to have breakfast accompanied by the rest of the inmates. Afterwards he will have an interview with the psychologist, mediator, doctor and educator of the Soto del Real prison.
Amargo faces nine years in prison after being accused of selling drugs at his home in Madrid. He pleads his innocence, stating that they were “for his own consumption.”