The Municipal Court of the Isle of Youth has acquitted three 11J protesters for whom the Prosecutor’s Office requested three years in prison for a crime of public disorder. They are Ramón Salazar Infante, president of the Pinero Autonomous Party (PAP), Martha de los Ángeles Pérez Acosta, head of the same party’s human rights department, and Francisco Alfaro Diéguez, leader of the March 13 Movement (M13).
According to the sentencing document, provided to 14ymedio, the facts that involved them “do not typify the crime of public disorder foreseen and sanctioned” in the Penal Code.
The trial was held on December 29 and, according to what Salazar Infante told the newspaper Cubanet, the ruling has been a relief and has taken them by surprise, in view of the excessive and exemplary sentences that the courts are imposing throughout the country.
A fourth protester charged in the municipality, Juan Luis Sánchez González, was sentenced for the crime of “attack” to three years in prison, compared to the five requested by the Public Ministry. The activist was in preventive detention in El Guayabo.
The sentence was issued on January 10, although it was not made public until the 22nd, so it was not clear whether those affected, in particular Sánchez González, can appeal it, since both he and the Prosecutor’s Office have 10 days to do so. .
As for the three acquitted, the document emphasizes that they acknowledged their participation in the demonstration, but that “there was no crowd of any person in the park where the accused attended.”
The account of the events states that Sánchez González was passing through the place of the demonstration at the time that Loisel Castro Herrera (arrested and released a month later with a fine) was running pursued by two officers, José Rafael García Salazar and Reulis Piñón Pileta, and there, “the defendant Juan Luis stands between the agents and the aforementioned citizen and without saying a word, he hit officer Reulis on the chin, causing a bruise, an injury that did not require medical treatment.”
The sentence details that Sánchez González denied having dealt the blow to the agent, but that this was confirmed by the testimony of the agent and of at least two witnesses. Both family members who have attended the trials and various civil organizations have warned that the witnesses provided by the prosecution lie, exaggerate or misrepresent the facts.
In addition, neither the prosecutor’s petition nor the Court’s ruling refers to the beating that Juan Luis Sánchez González received by the agents after arresting him.
Regarding the three acquitted, the document emphasizes that they acknowledged their participation in the demonstration, but that “there was no crowd of any person in the park where the accused went”, that “no disturbance was generated when these acts” and that the three defendants “stopped their behavior as soon as officer Iraimis Durán took them out of the group of people and peacefully walked to where they were told, being arrested at that moment.”
Salomé García Bacallao, a member of the Justicia 11J group, which accompanies the families of detainees with legal advice and shares the information available on trials, sees in the decision of this court “a pattern”: that “the sentences are being delayed.” On the other hand, says the activist, “we also do not know if in those 15 days (between the oral trial and the publication of the sentence) they modified the sentence due to the international pressure that is being exerted.”
García Bacallao recalls that the trial against 36 young people present at the protest at the corner of Toyo, the place that gave the most iconic image of that Sunday, when the protesters overturned a police patrol, begins on Monday in the Provincial Court of Havana. The activist has the impression that this process, unlike what has happened so far, will be covered by the official media.
Among the defendants are six minors under 18 years of age, for whom the Prosecutor’s Office requests sentences of between 13 and 23 years in prison:
– Rowland Jesús Castillo Castro (17 years old), 23 years in prison
– Kendry Miranda Cardenas (17), 20 years old
– Brandon David Becerra Curbelo (17), 18 years old
– Nayn Luis Marcos Molinet (16), 17 years old
– Lázaro Noel Urgelles Fajardo (16), 13 years old
– Giuseppe Belaunzaran Guada (17), 13 years old
Until February 7, in the same trial, the following defendants will also be prosecuted:
– Juan Emilio Pérez Estrada (27), 25 years in prison
– Asley Nelson Cabrera Puente (39), 25 years old
– Donger Soroa González (30), 25 years old
– Yoanky Báez Albornoz (27), 25 years old
– Alexander Ayllón Carvajal (23), 23 years old
– Ronald Garcia Sanchez (28), 23 years old
– Jorge Vallejo Venegas (35), 22 years old
– Alexis Borges Wilson (57), 22 years old
– Henry Fernandez Pantera (40), 22 years old
– Francisco Eduardo Soler Castañeda (49), 22 years old
– Lauren Martinez Ibanez (18), 21 years old
– Duannis Dabel León Taboada (22), 21 years old
– Adael Jesus Leyva Diaz (24), 21 years old
– Dayan Gustavo Flores Brito (22), 20 years old
– Óscar Bárbaro Bravo Cruzata (23), 20 years old
– Yussuan Villalba Sierra (31), 20 years old
– Daisy Rodriguez Alfonso (38), 20 years old
– Ricardo Duque Solis (55), 19 years old
– Edel Cabrera González (28), 19 years old
– Luis Armando Cruz Aguilera (21), 18 years old
– Kevin Damián Frometa Castro (19), 18 years old
– Yunior Garcia Vizcay (27), 18 years old
– Adrian Oljales Mora (23), 17 years old
– Yunaiky De La Caridad Linares Rodríguez (24), 17 years old
– Oriol Hernández Gálvez (48), 17 years old
– Rafael Jesus Nuñez Echenique (21), 16 years old
– Brayan Piloto Pupo (18), 16 years old
This Thursday the trials concluded in San Jose de las Lajas Y Quivican (Mayabeque) and Havana. However, the sentences have not yet been announced.
The fourth process carried out this week, in Jovellanos, Matanzas, where the opponent Félix Navarro and his daughter, the Lady in White Sayli Navarro Álvarez, were tried, among others, ended on Tuesday.
In an audio broadcast by former political prisoner Ángel Moya, Sayli Navarro explained that his trial went the same as others held to date (that only one companion was allowed per defendant and that the room was “full of soldiers”), and denounced that both his father and other prisoners were all the time with the wives known as shakiras.
“These wives have chains that are attached to the waist, and they also have other chains that go directly to other wives that they put on their ankles, and that’s how they walk,” said the opponent’s daughter, who was concerned because the friction of the wife in the ankle of his diabetic father, it can cause an injury and then worsen his ailments.
“There was a boy who said that here at the police station they had beaten him” and even pointed out which officers were there, but the young man, he says, was denied several times the medical care he needed after the beating he received.
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