MIAMI, United States. — Cubans who were engaged in marketing gasoline through social networks received sentences of up to two years in jail this Thursday, the People’s Provincial Court of Havana reported today.
That entity indicated in a note that the defendants sold fuel illegally at prices ranging between 350 and 600 pesos per liter, for which they were accused of crimes of speculation.
In total, 15 people were tried, of whom 13 were found guilty. The information adds that two people were acquitted “since their actions did not constitute a crime.”
Of the 13 convicted, 11 received sentences of between one year and four months and up to two years, while another two will have to do correctional work without internment.
The People’s Provincial Court of Havana indicated that the crime for which the 13 people were convicted was committed “in a complex scenario, nuanced by the scarcity of fuels; determinant of the existence of an exceptional situation in the country”, which constituted an aggravating circumstance at the time of issuing the sentence.
“It was agreed at the time of applying the sentences to the defendants (…) to increase the sanctioning frameworks provided for the aforementioned criminal classification,” the statement added.
The instance also specifies that “those responsible were subjected to sanctions of confiscation of seized fuel, deprivation of rights and prohibition to leave the national territory.”
The Court assured that “during the processing of the processes and in the holding of the oral trials, the legal guarantees and respect for due process enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic were complied with.”
The note points out that “those sanctioned and the Prosecutor’s Office have the right to file, before the higher court, the appeal that the law authorizes against the aforementioned judicial decisions.”
