Madrid/When Martiño Ramos Soto was arrested by the Cuban Police “He was calm, at home, and stated that he was unaware that he had anything pending in Spain.” This was told to Galician television by Interpol inspector Roberto Llamazares, who added hitherto unknown information. “He was trying to regularize his situation on the Island and was trying to marry a woman there to obtain a residence permit,” he revealed about the fugitive from Spanish Justice.
The media, both Galician and national, have been following all the details for several days about the discovery and subsequent arrest in Cuba of one of the 10 escaped criminals most wanted by the National Police. Ramos Soto, 50, has a pending sentence of 13 years and six months in prison for the rape of a student when she was a minor and in Spain few doubt that this issue will be resolved as soon as possible, despite the fact that there is no extradition agreement with Havana.
Among the options most considered is that the prisoner himself be the one to ask to return to Spain, where prison conditions would undoubtedly be more favorable than in Cuba. The last word, in any case, belongs to the Cuban judges.
Among the options that are most considered is that the prisoner himself be the one who asks to return to Spain, where the conditions in prison would undoubtedly be more favorable than in Cuba.
“I think it will be very fast because Cuba usually respects cooperation with Spain; although in the criminal field there is no agreement, diplomatically there is a good relationship between both countries,” has declared to the media from Ourense The Region the Cuban lawyer and resident in the Galician province Arián González. The expert emphasizes that the sentence – which has exhausted all resources and is confirmed by the Supreme Court – is for a type of crime “that arouses strong repudiation, contempt and reproach in Cuban society, with sentences of up to 30 years in prison, and the country is not interested in any type of discredit.”
“A Cuban prison will be torture for the prisoner from Ourense, incomparably more tortuous than a Spanish prison,” González warns.
The Government delegate in Galicia, Pedro Blanco, believes that Ramos’ return is imminent. “I trust that in the next few hours or days he can be in Spain to serve the sentence to which he was sentenced,” he said, precisely, at an event for the Elimination of Violence against Women, in which he wanted to thank the work of the Spanish National Police, “who were working overtime to locate him.”
Sources from the Fugitive Location Brigade of the Drug and Organized Crime Unit of the Police They have told the newspaper from Madrid The World that Ramos Soto had been under surveillance for a month without his knowledge and, specifically in recent weeks, the international cooperation necessary for his arrest and processing his extradition had been coordinated.
The fugitive, after passing through Portugal, Brazil and Peru, had been in Cuba since July without the authorities having done anything, but the Spanish National Police has no reproaches for his colleagues on the Island: “When they appreciated the crime and the seriousness of the events, they wanted to collaborate in everything possible from the first moment.”
“Cuba is not obliged to hand over a fugitive, but it can do so under the principle of reciprocity,” added its spokesperson.
Fernando González, head of the fugitive unit of the Spanish Police, has also confirmed the thesis of marriage of convenience. “He went to ask the Embassy for the papers in order to obtain residency. It doesn’t have to be a problem to arrest him and extradite him, but it could be something else that complicates the process,” he considered. However, since the procedure has not been completed, the path is clear.
González also pointed out that the publication of the most wanted campaign, in which Ramos Soto appeared, was done based on “operational criteria” and denies that it was the association of Protective Mothers that found the fugitive. “I’m not saying that in this, as in any other case, citizen collaboration is not important, and perhaps they even communicated it to a police officer in Galicia. But we don’t know and I didn’t know about them until today,” said the police official.
González also pointed out that the publication of the most wanted campaign, in which Ramos Soto appeared, was made due to “operational criteria.”
Ramos Soto, a former music teacher and linked to the left-wing political movement En Marea, was accused of rape in 2021 and convicted in the first instance, aggravated by the victim’s minority, who was barely 12 years old at the beginning of the relationship, and the sadistic practices used in the crime – including whippings -. Although he appealed to all possible instances, in July 2025, the Supreme Court ratified the decision and ordered his imprisonment, but he had fled 12 days before.
In Cuba, as sources have confirmed 14ymediowas very actively related to artistic and cultural circles under the name Martín Soto. He lived in El Vedado, had a silkscreen and presented himself as a photographer. In this way, Soto managed to make a group of friends – many of them young people and models – who discovered with astonishment his true identity when the information appeared in the digital newspaper. The Spanish, last Sunday.
On October 17, a European and international arrest warrant was issued – effective in Cuba – and on the 31st of the same month, the Court of Ourense issued an order to request the Ministry of Justice for his extradition, which has already been processed and pending the decision of the Cuban judges.
