By Sonia Osorio

MIAMI – Sondra Macollin Garvin, an attorney defending a former Colombian guerrilla, said that she feels no panic upon entering maximum-security prisons, but it was a different story the first time she stood before a microphone to sing.

The attorney who sings at night admits that her artistic career, which began in December 2008, is a “pretty complicated subject.”

“It gave me more of a fright being in front of a microphone because it’s like you’re out there naked. The artistic subject is pretty complicated because you never know if they’re going to like you, or whether you’re going to catch on. On the other hand, going inside a jail for me is a piece of cake,” she told Efe in an interview in Miami.

The Colombian attorney, a specialist in penal law and an expert in extradition procedures, is promoting in the United States her first album, “Sondra,” produced by fellow Colombian Fernando Garavito and distributed by Reyes Records.

The album contains 11 songs, six that she wrote herself and one called “Dame Tu Corazon” (Give Me Your Heart), for which she and Garavito did the arrangement, that got her into the preselection of the nominees for the 2009 Latin Grammy Awards in the categories of Best Female Vocal Pop Album, Best New Artist and Song of the Year.

“I didn’t make it into the nominees, but it was still a record because I hadn’t been a singer for a year and it was my first production,” the artist said proudly. Early next year she will make a promotional tour of Central America and Spain.

For Macollin, 34, singing is rewarding, but litigation is also a passion – that’s why she decided to travel those twin paths: lawyer by day and singer by night.

“It’s like having a split personality: during the day I’m in the office wearing a tie and at night I put on a super-sexy dress. A pretty big switch,” she said.

During the day she works at her own law firm on cases to do with drug trafficking, extradition and others that often echo abroad, like that of Hely Mejia Mendoza, alias “Martin Sombra”, accused of terrorism in the U.S. for his role in the capture of defense contractors Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell and Thomas Howes.

The former member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was known as the “jailer” because he ran the jungle camps where kidnapped Colombian politicians and soldiers were held, including ex-presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.

Though the case is controversial, Macollin assumed the defense pro bono, after winning Martin Sombra’s trust when he was confined to Colombia’s Combita prison.

“I went to him. When I heard about his case it interested me because he was the highest ranking FARC member in custody at that time in Colombia. They had several court-appointed lawyers, numerous proceedings and it was said that a case of extradition (to the U.S.) was coming up,” the attorney-singer said.

She said she got so wrapped up in the case it became a personal challenge because “at that time I was finishing a master’s thesis and my subject was extradition. I said ‘I’m going to win this case.’”

She got her victory when in June the Colombian Supreme Court refused to extradite Sombra, nabbed in 2008 after belonging to the FARC for almost four decades.

Defending the case was difficult, she said, because people thought it was “horrible” that she would work on behalf of a guerrilla and didn’t understand that the Colombian constitution “must prevail over the interests of any country.”

“It’s not that I’m lending myself to help a person like him to continue flouting the law. On the contrary, I’m applying Colombian law so that those he has victimized can be part of the process,” she said.

She bases her arguments on the fact that the constitution does not permit extradition for crimes committed on Colombian soil.

Now she is seeking a pardon for Sombra after obtaining his certification as a demobilized combatant under Colombia’s Justice and Peace Law.

This legal recourse allows the demobilization of right-wing militias if those involved confess their homicides and gives them reduced jail sentences.

“For me the case has been very important because I’ve been able to speak openly about the subject and send a message to guerrilla groups so that they realize the chance the government is giving them, while at the same time it gives us the opportunity to get people to leave the rebel groups,” she said. EFE