Ok first I want to say .. it was not my intention to skip the last week with no posts !  But, really I have a valid excuse.  First, NO internet.  And that is crucial for posting new content !  Apparently my daughter thought the cable looked like lunch. Second, my poor cat Billie Jean got attacked by a Rottweiler and I have been busy nursing her back to health.  Which I am happy to report, she is doing much better.  I wrote a wonderful post last friday, **pats self on back** to introduce “Food Friday” but then came home to find out that my daughter chomped the cable.  So now you will have to wait until tomorrow for “Food Friday” .. I know you can’t wait, right ?!?!

So I wanted to post an update about a previous post that I had wrote about two girls from the UK, that were arrested for fraud in Rio.  This is the an article I found on the sentencing.

The two British backpackers that were arrested in Rio de Janeiro for falsely claiming their valuables had been stolen were yesterday sentenced to 16 months jail time.

The judge however has converted their prison sentence to community serve and has ordered the girls to do seven hours a day work for the next eight months as punishment for the attempted fraud.

Shanti Andrews and Rebecca Turner both 23-years-old, were said to be relieved not to go back to a jail like the one they served six days in after their arrest. Both described that experience as the worst in their life.

Andrews and Turner are expected to appeal their conviction while staying in a flat they have rented for the time they are now spending in Rio. Their lawyer has said that he will try and get the harsh sentence overturned or carried to the UKwhere they could do the community service.

The two law students were on the last part of their round the world trip when they contacted police in Rio to say they had been robbed on a bus of items to the value of £1,000. Police became suspicious when they learned the girls had waited a few days before reporting the crime. They then searched the hostel where the two were staying and found the missing items.

source: theguardian.co.uk

So they have gotten off the hook this time.  I hope they have learned their lesson, that not everything goes in a country like Brazil.  Well maybe they can now view it as a lesson learned, and a journey to continue learning.  Maybe after all this, they will go home with new insights, the ability to speak Portuguese and new love for the country that I call home !

What do you think about the sentencing ?

When British tourists Shanti Andrews and Rebecca Turner touched down in Brazil earlier this month on the last leg of a nine-month world tour, they came in search of sun, sand and samba.

Instead the 23-year-old law graduates ended up in “Cell Zero-Zero”, a damp and overcrowded jail on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, home to nearly 150 Brazilian prisoners accused of drug trafficking, robbery and murder.

The two former Sussex University students, who were due to fly home last Monday, told police they had been robbed while travelling to Rio from Foz do Iguacu, a popular tourist destination on Brazil’s border with Paraguay and Argentina.

Police records show that among the £1,000 worth of property the women said had been robbed was an Apple iPod Touch, a Canon 8015 NUS camera, and a laptop.

According to reports in the Brazilian press, the police immediately suspected something was wrong since the two women still had their passports. The police asked to be taken to the beachside hostel where the women were staying and, inside, they claim to have found the belongings that had supposedly been stolen in the women’s hostel’s lockers. Rio’s tourist police say the “luggage trick”, by which tourists pretend to have been robbed in order to claim on insurance, is a growing trend in this seaside city.

“It’s another way of financing your trip,” said a European tourist who admitted to filing a fake police report at the same station in Rio in order to claim on insurance. “It’s one hour at the station in exchange for €700-800. That’s an air fare.”

Andrews and Turner were taken to a holding jail in Mesquita, a rundown neighbourhood on the city’s western outskirts. There the women, who do not speak Portuguese, were photographed before being locked up alongside dozens of impoverished Brazilian prisoners. According to the jail’s warden, the majority of the prisoners are drug mules who were caught smuggling cocaine, marijuana and crack into other prisons for their husbands.

“They are being treated like any other Brazilian prisoner,” said one of the British girls’ lawyers, Eduardo Tonini, as he walked to Casa Parana, a nearby supermarket that is stocked with everything a prisoner could want: toothpaste, disposable razors, toilet paper and chocolate bars. Tonini bought a coconut cake, four chocolate and vanilla bars, and a roll of toilet paper. “They are not eating. They are very nervous,” he said. “They are sleeping on the floor. They have to sleep on their sides because there is no room. These are the terrible conditions of the Brazilian prison system.”

When the Guardian visited the Polinter jail, Andrews and Turner declined to be interviewed, saying they would talk only after being released.

“I’m the one taking care of them,” a prisoner who identified herself as Auntie Claudia said through a small opening in the cell’s metal door. On the wall behind her, prisoners had scrawled the letters CV, the insignia of the Rio drug faction the Red Command, or Comando Vermelho.

Carlos Pereira Araujo, a prison guard, tried to put a brave face on conditions inside Polinter, where exposed wires hang from the ceilings and a broken typewriter, pieces of a photocopy machine and two stray dogs adorn the entrance. “The food is great here: rice, beans and a bit of meat. Here it is total luxury,” he said.

But Araujo later admitted: “It is super-full here. There’s no space. People sleep on the floor.”

Under Brazilian law, prisoners with a university degree have the right to special accommodation, away from “common prisoners”. But Rio authorities say they have yet to receive proof that the pair graduated from Sussex University in 2007.

Yesterday, as a judge rejected a bail request and authorities prepared to transfer the women to the Bangu prison, home to some of Brazil’s most dangerous criminals, lawyers representing the pair continued to insist their clients were innocent.

source: The Guardian UK 

 

I don’t think educated law students from the UK should think anything goes in a country like Brazil.  With that said, the judicial system here is a VERY slow and complicated system, having experienced it myself.  I still have a case going with the Brazilian government, 3 years later !  (as a victim)   So should we have a little compassion for two young girls, who seem to be naive and misguided and didn’t realize the seriousness of their crime, committed in a country outside of their own ?   I think what they are being accused of is pretty petty.  And well yes, people make mistakes.  But I think spending any amount of time in a Brazilian prison is a sufficient punishment for them to learn their lesson. (although I have no experience with this, but I have heard stories and can only imagine.  I have also watched this wonderful, but sad  film. A true story about a Sao Paulo prison)   But on the other hand, if convicted, I don’t think these two girls should be allowed to practice law.  With all that being said, I feel bad for the girls families and will follow this story to see what shall happen.  

What are your thoughts on this ?  Do you think they should have to spend time in jail for this crime, if indeed convicted ?