• Two Sisters. They released a man who lived locked up by his brothers in an unhealthy dovecote

As a prisoner of a Nazi concentration camp. This is how the police described the state in which they found Carlos Ríos when he was rescued from his confinement, in 2015, in the family house he shared with his brother. Malnourished, naked and dirty, enclosed in a "cubicle" of three square meters, without electricity, with a window covered by a plastic and a half-fallen door and held by a wire.

Carlos Ríos, known in his town, Dos Hermanas (Sevilla), as 'Pasoslargos', had been for years, it is not known how many, living in subhuman conditions in a kind of loft. There his brother locked him when he left home so that he was not harmed or caused it, because, in addition, he suffers from a mental illness of a psychotic type, a schizophrenia , for which he has a 70% disability.

In theory, his brother, Guillermo Ríos, took care of him and, in theory, his sister Águeda, helped him with the task.

But, as the Provincial Court of Seville has ruled, both did nothing but subject their sick brother to an ordeal of "subhuman" conditions. Therefore, the court that tried both of them, that of the Fourth Section, has sentenced the two brothers for a year and a half in prison as responsible for a crime of degrading treatment. In addition, it imposes the prohibition of approaching or communicating with Carlos until the year 2022 and forces them to compensate the victim with 35,000 euros.

Cubicle on the roof of the house where the victim was locked up. CARLOS MÁRQUEZ

And this despite the fact that the judges acquit the brothers of the crime of misappropriation of which they were also accused, for keeping the pension of just over a thousand euros charged by 'Pasoslargos' for their disability.

It is not known exactly when the calvary of this schizophrenia patient began, but it ended on December 17, 2015, when two agents of the National Police Corps had to accompany their brother Guillermo home due to the "superlative" drunkenness - according to the certificate - it presented.

Upon entering the house, they noticed a closed door with several locks and locks and, after asking the convict, discovered access to a kind of storage room on the roof of the house. There, on a rickety bed and surrounded by plastic bottles (in which he made his needs) was Carlos.

The sentence of the Audiencia of Seville confirms that the confinement, although not permanent because it was only locked when his brother left, caused a considerable worsening of his mental illness. To the point that the doctors who examined him after his release appreciated in him an "affective dullness, ideo-verbal poverty, praise [when language and thought cease to flow], psychomotor inhibition, lack of initiative and social isolation."

Degrading treatment "no doubt," says the court.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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