...hard path of change....

ok well first i want to mention, my spanish grades, luckily, were not reflective of how i felt the exam went, in fact, i got a lovely 4.5 of 5.

now this entry has a few points to it, the fist being that it marks a mile stone for me. i watched a documentary recently and understood a good 90% of what was said/discussed. For me this was as fantastic as the topic was sickening.

the programm is called 'espiciales de pirry'. the programme is colombian and pirry is the guy that investigates and presents the show, similar to the likes of 60 minutes etc. the subject of this particular episode was luis garavito.

garavito is a colombian serial killer who has possible the most viticms of any killer in the world, other than war criminals.

while having only admited to crimes comitted to just under 140 victims, he is being investigated regarding another 172 and the authorities and other belive there to be be many more than this. garavito is aptly known as 'le bestia' or in english 'the beast'.

he is one of the worlds worst peadophiles and his crimes involve raping, tourturing, killing and then dismembering children betweens the ages of 6 to 16. his victims were mainly poor children or street children, and he would lure them with small amounts of money or gifts.

so while he is a horrendous human being my issue is the following:

colombian law has not 'life' term and states that you can only be sentanced for the worst of the crimes comitted. therefore, while he has admitted to 140 killings, which in most other countries would earn you 140 sentances to be served end on end, he only recived a sentance for 30 years.

on top of this, as he helped the police in locating the bodies of these vicitms and many of the addional 172 he is being investigated for, he had his sentance reduced to 22 years. furthermore tit is likely he will be released in 3 years due to good behaviour, having served less than 15 years.

due in part to pirry's investigation this has lead to a change in sentancing laws here and while this is a step in the right direction, ufortunately will not affect garavito as colombian laws are not retrospective.

pirry spent many months preparing for the interviews for this episode in part with the hope he would get some new information which would be able to be used to charge garavito for new crimes as double jeporady means he cannot be re-tried for the same crimes more than once. however to my knowlege nothing new surfaced.

everyones worst fears are that he will return to previous habits once freed. pirry's documentary showed garavito to be void of any compassion or acknoldgement of what he did was wrong, he even mentions he wishes to run for government on his release. he takes no responsability for his actions and blames the children, and his own experience of being a victim of sexual abuse, although there are many out there who have been victims and do not go on to rape and kill over 300 children.

all expert opions, agreed that he is not reformed and that it was almost impossible that he ever would be.

the only saving grace is that here in colombia, there is no doubt he will be shot once released, i don't even think it will necesarily be by a family member of a victim. he is loathed here by all.