The trial for espionage against the former deputy prime minister and former minister of Economy and Planning of Cuba, Alejandro Gilconcluded this Thursday after three days of oral hearing in the Supreme People’s Court (TSP), as confirmed to EFE sources close to the process.
The trial, held in Havana, was attended exclusively by “the parties and persons authorized by the court” for “reasons of National Security,” according to the TSP. The court did not indicate whether the case had been heard for sentencing.
The Attorney General’s Office (FGR) has charged him with ten additional crimes, in addition to espionage, for which he will be tried in a separate process, which apparently includes others under investigation.
Official silence and expectation regarding the espionage trial of Alejandro Gil
Gil, Minister of Economy and Planning between 2018 and 2024, was dismissed in February of last year in what was initially attributed to problems in the application of economic reforms in the country in a context of serious crisis.
However, a month later, the president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, explained in an unusual statement that Gil was being investigated for “serious errors” linked to corruption crimes and that the former minister had acknowledged “serious accusations.” Gil remained in provisional prison since then.
At the end of this October, one year and seven months after the presidential statement, the FGR announced that Gil was charged with eleven crimes, including espionage, an unexpected charge that placed the process in a new framework.
The others were embezzlement, falsification of documents, tax evasion, influence peddling, money laundering, acts detrimental to economic activity or contracting, bribery, violation of the rules for the protection of classified documents and theft, and damage to documents or other objects in official custody.
Gil, who was considered someone very close to Díaz-Canel, is the largest political official to fall from grace in at least 15 years. In addition to his positions in the Executive, he was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC).
The former minister was in charge of the implementation of the great monetary reform of 2021, the controversial Ordering Task, which tried to end the use of a double currency in Cuba but was a failure.
He was also in charge of applying the first adjustment measures to stabilize the economy, such as the controversial increase in fuel prices, with increases of up to 400%.
He was also responsible for opening certain sectors of the economy to national private initiative with the lifting of the ban on micro, small and medium-sized businesses, which had been banned between 1969 and 2021.
