![]() ![]() Once again, with the cause of justice on our side, we would wage the terrible battle of truth against infamy! Surely the regime was not prepared for the moral catastrophe in store for it! Those who had met in combat confronted one another again. But the rest of the accused, the minority, were brave and determined, ready to proudly confirm their part in the battle for freedom, ready to offer an example of unprecedented self-sacrifice and to wrench from the jail’s claws those who in deliberate bad faith had been included in the trial. They had been under preventive arrest for many days, suffering all kinds of insults and abuses in the chambers of the repressive units. The great majority had nothing to do with what had happened. Among one hundred machine guns and bayonets, scandalously invading the hall of justice, more than a hundred people were seated in the prisoner’s dock. The first court session was September 21st. If you sincerely believed this, you should not have allowed your authority to be stained and degraded. You have publicly called this case the most significant in the history of the Republic. I propose to do all this with utmost clarity. I consider it essential that I explain, at the onset, the reason for the terrible isolation in which I have been kept what was the purpose of keeping me silent what was behind the plots to kill me, plots which the Court is familiar with what grave events are being hidden from the people and the truth behind all the strange things which have taken place during this trial. The accused, who is now exercising this right to plead his own case, will under no circumstances refrain from saying what he must say. First: because I have been denied legal aid almost entirely, and second: only one who has been so deeply wounded, who has seen his country so forsaken and its justice trampled so, can speak at a moment like this with words that spring from the blood of his heart and the truth of his very gut. If I have had to assume my own defense before this Court it is for two reasons. He who speaks to you hates vanity with all his being, nor are his temperament or frame of mind inclined towards courtroom poses or sensationalism of any kind. As accused, for the past seventy-six days he has been locked away in solitary confinement, held totally and absolutely incommunicado, in violation of every human and legal right. As attorney he has not even been able to take a look at the indictment. In this case, counsel and defendant are one and the same. Never has a lawyer had to practice his profession under such difficult conditions never has such a number of overwhelming irregularities been committed against an accused man. ![]()
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