Because we are in a judicial orchestration that reminds us of Stalinist trials, where there are plenty of acts but missing actors.
PUERTO PADRE, Cuba.- Confused, as most of the Cuban population is these days given the police, judicial and political secrecy with which the State maintains a criminal process that should have been public, many people have approached me asking: “Why can Alejandro Gil have more than one judgment for the same crimes?”
The repeated question from these Internet users occurs after reading or listening to what was said to the newspaper Granmain a personal and unofficial capacity—but perhaps induced—by Dr. Arnel Medina Cuencavice president of the Cuban Society of Criminal Sciences, who suggested that, judging by the official notes published by the Prosecutor’s Office and the Supreme Court, “at least two different files” would be ongoing against former Minister Alejandro Gil, but that since he was the only one accused in the most serious crime, the court began to judge espionage. Both official and independent media, inside and outside Cuba, have amplified Dr. Medina’s words without exploring the context in which they were said, announcing more than one trial, without first asking: Why can Alejandro Gil face more than one trial, if, at first glance, and it is not necessary to be a lawyer to distinguish, each of the 10 crimes that he is accused of and that we review in the previous article Are they, like the links of a chain, unique, necessary, essential means to hold one from the other?
If Alejandro Gil committed espionage, and being as he was former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Planning: How could he spy without committing the crimes of Infringement of the rules for the protection of classified documents and Theft and damage to documents or other objects in official custody?
How could former Minister Gil Fernández commit the crime of Embezzlement, without before, or, during, or, after embezzling, not incurring the crimes of Acts detrimental to economic activity or contracting, Bribery, Influence Peddling, or how Alejandro Gil could commit the crime of Embezzlement, without committing crimes Against public faith, Against the public treasury, incurring, likewise, Asset Laundering and Tax Evasion?
Technically, due to the unity and plurality of actions and crimes, the ten criminal offenses that Mr. Alejandro Miguel Gil Fernández is accused of are considered a single crime, and of them and depending on the participation of the other defendants – whose names have not been said, I reiterate – each one is punished for the most serious infraction in the events in which each alleged guilty party participated.
In simpler terms: Related crimes are those that are committed as a means or aid to incur other offenses, or to facilitate, abbreviate or cover up another crime; or, the various crimes attributed to an accused if they have a criminal analogy with each other and had not previously been the subject of criminal proceedings.
And, understand well. The Chamber of Crimes against State Security of the Supreme Court may be in session, as it is currently judging Gil Fernández, in a court in Marianao, or it may be in an undergrowth in Sao del Indio, or under a bush of guao de costa in the pasture of Don Pío; Even the magistrates may be without togas, the women in blouses and the men in T-shirts, even so, never forget, these judges have jurisdiction and competence to judge all crimes allegedly committed by an accused, even if they are common, when at least one of those criminal offenses falls under their jurisdiction, as in this case, that of ten crimes, only one is against the powers of the State, espionage.
Or, in other words: The Crimes against State Security Chamber of the Supreme Court has competence and jurisdiction to try the ten crimes charged by the Attorney General’s Office to the former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Planning Alejandro Miguel Gil Fernández and anonymous co-defendants.
Although politically there are reasons, those of the utilitarian secrecy of the regime, subtracting, by force or by embezzlement, what remains of sovereignty from the Cuban nation, already battered, legally, there are no reasons to divide a criminal process into more than one cause when it comes to various criminal actions that damage the same legal asset, are similar in their execution, are close in time and are perpetrated by the same people.
To those who have asked me: “Why can Alejandro Gil have more than one trial for the same crimes?”, I now say out of public interest what I have said privately: Because we are in a judicial orchestration that reminds us of the Stalinist trials, where there are plenty of acts, but there are lack of actors. And by “acts” we mean crimes and by “actors” we mean white-collar criminals, even if they carry a red Communist Party card in their pocket.
