The Cubalex Legal Information Center denounces a lack of medical care and demands an independent investigation into the inmate’s death.
MIAMI, United States. – The Cubalex Legal Information Center reported the death of inmate Serguey Marrero Faure on October 11 in the Guantánamo Provincial Prison, after presenting a “health condition that was not adequately attended to,” as the organization published on Facebook.
According to the same note, Marrero Faure “went to the prison medical station with pain in his leg and was diagnosed with a blood clot, without receiving treatment. Shortly after, he lost his life.” The family, who had visited him days before and assured that he was fine, “demands answers from the authorities.” “So far, no official details have been offered about the circumstances of his death,” Cubalex added.
The organization stressed that since January 2025 it has documented 35 deaths of people deprived of liberty, cases that “reveal negligence, lack of medical care, violence and absence of independent investigations, a reflection of the inhumane conditions in Cuban prisons.”
Cubalex also recalled that “penitentiary authorities are obliged to guarantee timely and adequate medical care, and to immediately and independently investigate each death that occurs in custody.”
The death of Marrero Faure is the last known case of death in state custody in Cuba, where complaints about human rights violations in the country’s prisons abound. A report from the Research and Advocacy Initiative (formerly Justice 11J), recorded “at least 24” deaths in State custody between January and June of this year and specified that, of that total, “eight occurred as a direct consequence of the deliberate denial of medical care,” identified as one of the most frequent forms of mistreatment in prisons.
That report documented 160 situations constituting torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in at least 43 penitentiary centers, with “45 cases of beatings or physical torture, 104 of denial of medical care and 11 episodes of psycho-emotional torture.” Among the establishments with the highest number of complaints, he pointed out the Combinado del Este (Havana), the Boniato prison (Santiago de Cuba) and Kilo 8 (Camagüey). The Initiative also identified that “at least 56” of the affected people were political prisoners, which, according to its authors, reinforces the pattern of systematic repression within the prison system.
“The figures we have documented are alarming. Behind each number there are lives cut short and families devastated. The Cuban authorities must immediately stop these inhuman practices and guarantee justice and reparation for the victims,” declared then Camila Rodríguez, executive director of the Initiative, who also warned “about the total lack of independent supervision mechanisms and the absolute control of the State over the prison system.”
In its recommendations, the Initiative urged the international community to demand “the opening of prisons to independent observers,” as well as “impartial investigations into documented deaths and acts of torture.” Compared to the same period in 2024, the report reported “26 deaths in custody and 1,876 repressive acts.”
Until the closing of this note, no official explanations had been offered regarding the circumstances of the death of Serguey Marrero Faure in the Guantánamo Provincial Prison. Cubalex insisted that any death in custody must be triggered by an “immediate and independent” investigation and with guarantees of “timely and adequate medical care” for people deprived of liberty.
