Madrid/Havana/The primary school teacher, former leader in Orense (Galicia) of the leftist En Marea coalition and fugitive from Spanish Justice Martiño Ramos Soto is a refugee in Havana. He has revealed it this sunday The Spanish and confirm it to 14ymedio sources who have met him in person.
“I can’t explain to you the number of times that guy invited me to his house, telling me to take photos and what not. The luck is that I never found him funny. He seems like a kind person, super good people, and quite the opposite,” a model tells this newspaper who assures that the individual also tried to seduce another acquaintance “who looked like a teenager.”
Sentenced to 13 years in prison for “sadistically” raping a student continuously since she was 12 years old and for four years, Ramos Sotos should have entered prison in Spain on September 15, the date on which they discovered that he had already disappeared without a trace. The authorities issued a search and arrest warrant and the Civil Guard has been searching for him unsuccessfully since then.
In the Cuban capital, where according to The Spanish He has resided “at least since July 2025”, presents himself as a photographer and his name is Martín Soto. On their social networks you can see images of the Cuban capital until five days ago. The friend of a woman he used to date after meeting her on Instagram, reveals that the Galician lived in El Vedado, specifically on 27, between E and F. He lived, past tense, because he is no longer there.
The neighbors told him that “he had left very early with all his suitcases”
“She left on Friday morning,” says this source, who says that that same day she called her friend by message to give her something and she never responded. “She wrote to him and called him many times, worried, and when she didn’t answer, she showed up at his house. The neighbors told her that “he had left early with all his suitcases.” The Cuban cell phone line he had was without signal.
Sources who have lived with him in Havana assure that “he spent his time at social events, exhibitions, museums and theater” and that he frequented restaurants, bars and cultural centers such as the Fábrica de Arte Cubano, Tempo, Fangio or La Azotea de la India. “Artists here, meet a bunch, and business owners too.” To everyone, says the young man who agreed to speak with 14ymedioI knew them through Instagram. “If they were half-photogenic little girls, I wrote to them to tell them that I wanted to take photos of them.”
It is not, then, as mentioned The Spanishthat he moved “without attracting attention”, but that the circle in which he moved had no idea who Martín Soto really was. “We can’t imagine that he is the same person we read in the news. That happens to everyone who knew him, and there were quite a few of them,” says another of the friends who treated him. “He always hid his name from everyone, and they would ask him when he was leaving and he never said anything.”
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The case of pedophilia for which he was convicted caused great shock in Spanish public opinion. Ramos Soto had been a highly visible figure on the local left, and several national leaders from Izquierda Unida, Podemos and Sumar had appeared in public with him. In addition, he boasted in networks and acts of being dedicated to the feminist cause. It presented itself, in fact, as one activist told The Countryas “a perfect ally” and the “ideal of masculinity.”
Beneath this disguise, a very different truth was hidden. In another report by The Spanish, last octoberit was revealed that Ramos Soto had not only raped the minor “at least ten times”, between the ages of 12 and 16, but that he “slapped and spanked her as a sadistic practice.”
The fact that he had social recognition in Orense, “made the victim not believed,” he confessed to The Country a former militancy partner. The story has been replicated in different Spanish media based on the facts recorded in the sentence. Ramos Soto, born in that city in inland Galicia in 1975, worked as a music teacher at the victim’s school, where he taught at least seven courses.
He first contacted her on Instagram, hiding who he was, when she was 11 years old, and a “virtual relationship” was established between them. At the same time that he presented himself “as emotional support for her,” he pressured her to send him intimate photos. When he discovered that his interlocutor was actually his elementary school music teacher, the physical abuse began.
“We cannot imagine that it is the same person we have read in the news”
At the age of 16, in 2021, after a rape that left her badly injured, the minor finally reported him, but Ramos Soto continued teaching because, the regional government alleged, “the judicial authorities at no time decreed precautionary measures.” He was not suspended from his job until three years later, after being found guilty by the Provincial Court of Orense, something that was later ratified by the Superior Court of Galicia.
The Supreme Court, rejecting all appeals from Ramos Soto’s defense, declared the sentence final in July 2025, but he left Spain before that sentence was confirmed, so there were no warnings against him. The European country does not have an extradition treaty with the Island, which makes delivery complicated. “As long as he remains there, it is very difficult to bring him back,” a legal source told The Spanish.
The problem, according to the story of the model contacted by 14ymedioworsens with his sudden disappearance. “Now the guy is totally lost, disappeared from the map, because it seems that he already knows that people are looking for him,” says the model who spoke with this newspaper.
“I think he left because someone recognized him and he got some sign that he had been discovered,” says another acquaintance. “On the other hand, taking into account his behavior in recent days, I believe that he had already planned to leave. He did not go on a brokerage trip.”
