Alejandrina Torres (born June 18, 1939) is a Puerto Rican woman whose trial as a member and role in Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (FALN) resulted in her conviction and sentencing of 35 years for seditious conspiracy.
[6] The arrest in April 1980 of a dozen FALN members in Evanston led to the identification of Edwin Cortes as a suspect.
[8] In the apartment, they found approximately 24 pounds of dynamite, 24 blasting caps, weapons, disguises, false identification and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
[15][16] During the trial, Cortes and Torres painted a picture of Puerto Rico as a bleak world where American corporations, particularly drug companies, conducted unethical experiments, such as birth control tests, on Puerto Rican women; where the American government systematically effaced a rich, proud Puerto Rican cultural heritage; and where the powerful, shadowy hand of the Wall Street capitalist dictated the country's politics and exploited its citizens and natural resources.
[27] The other ten who accepted clemency were: Edwin Cortes, Elizam Escobar, Ricardo Jiménez, Adolfo Matos, Dylcia Noemi Pagan, Alberto Rodriguez (FALN), Alicia Rodríguez (FALN), Ida Luz Rodríguez, Luis Rosa, and Carmen Valentín Pérez.
[28] Rather, they had been convicted on a variety of charges ranging from bomb making, conspiracy to armed robbery, and firearms violations.
[19] President Clinton's offer of clemency to former FALN members, including Alejandrina, was strongly opposed by overwhelming bipartisan majorities in both the US House of Representatives and US Senate.
[16][30] For many years, numerous national and international organizations criticized Torres' incarceration categorizing it as political imprisonment.
[33][34][35][36][37][38][39] The Lexington, Kentucky facility where Torres was imprisoned was sharply criticized by Amnesty International and its closure was eventually ordered by U.S. District Judge Barrington Parker.
Amnesty International and the House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Administration of Justice both criticized the conditions.
[16] A federal judge also expressed concerns regarding FALN prisoners held at the Female High Security Unit, Lexington, Kentucky.
Amnesty International condemned the conditions in that unit as "deliberately and gratuitously oppressive" and as causing physical and psychological deterioration.
In a second incident, a male prison lieutenant forced her to put her head between his knees and observed while female guards tore off her clothes and left her naked.
The authorities responded to Torres' complaint in this case by placing her in solitary confinement, prohibiting from calling her family and lawyer to denounce the abuses.
She was further penalized for violating prison rules, and a secret letter was written to a judge assigned to her case giving a false version of the events.