SAN LUIS POTOSÍ, Mexico.- The former Cuban judge Melody Gonzalez Pedraza, who is waiting in a detention center in Florida for her political asylum trial, denounced the Cuban judicial system before the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers and asked not to be deported to the Island, as confirmed by Cuba Diary.
A relative of González told the independent media that the former judge She filed the complaint on July 25, in a letter addressed to a senior official of the rapporteur’s office based in Geneva, Switzerland.
In the letter, to which he had access Cuba DiaryMelody González claims that the judicial system obeys “political decisions” and is at the mercy of external agents such as the Communist Party, the Government and State Security.
“I trust that my voice will be heard and that the Government and system of judges in the United States will not hand me over to death, probable imprisonment and the most humiliating situation. I have declared and remain willing to declare before its structure to clarify and provide the details that are needed for the good of the mission that justice must play in Cuba, and I trust that I will not be returned to the tyrannical hands of those who demand my head,” she wrote in her petition to the UN.
Unfair sanctions
The former Cuban official, who will face a trial on Wednesday, July 31, where she will have to prove “credible fear” to be granted asylum, said she hopes that her complaint will serve “to exonerate the four young men” whom she sentenced “without having evidence in sight, and consequently they will be released without interference from justice.
“Let these statements serve as an internal starting point for good debate among judges, prosecutors, lawyers and academic jurists,” he added.
The Cuban authorities also hope that the special rapporteur will investigate the way in which Cuban judges exercise their functions.
Gonzalez Pedraza condemned for an alleged crime of attacking four young people and subsequently emigrated to the United States. He received his parole on May 10, and on May 11, his travel permit. He informed his boss of his trip and was immediately suspended from his employment.
The sentence against the four boys was handed down on May 8 and ordered imprisonment of up to four years for three of them, and three years for another.
The appeal
The Provincial People’s Court of Villa Clara admitted the appeal of the sentence handed down against Andy Gabriel González Fuentes, Adain Barreiro Pérez, Eddy Daniel Rodríguez Milián and Luis Ernesto Medina Pedraza, according to the media Marti NewsThe defendants will face a new trial on August 9.
From the Broward Transitional Center (BTC), in Floridathe former regime official admitted this month that the process in which she sentenced the four Cubans to prison terms was manipulated by the Provincial Court of Villa Clara and the State Security.
González Pedraza also referred to the lack of autonomy of judges in Cuba and mentioned monthly meetings with the Court, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of Interior where judicial decisions are imposed. “We are even mistreated in these meetings, we have no independence or authority,” he said.
Follow our channel WhatsApp. Receive the information from CubaNet on your cell phone through Telegram.
