The regime cites article 4 of the Constitution, which establishes that “treason against the Homeland is the most serious crime” and that “whoever commits it is subject to the most severe sanctions.”
MIAMI, United States. – The Supreme People’s Court (TSP) of Cuba sentenced former Cuban Deputy Prime Minister Alejandro Gil Fernández to life imprisonment plus 20 years in prison, for crimes that include espionage, bribery, influence peddling and tax evasion, according to an official note spread by Granma and other state media.
Gil Fernández was facing two processes, whose oral hearings, according to official information, were held in two sections: between November 11 and 13 and between November 26 and 29 of the same month.
In the first criminal case, the TSP considered Gil Fernández responsible for the espionage crimes; acts detrimental to economic activity or contracting; bribery; theft and damage of documents or other objects in official custody; violation of official seals and violation of the rules for the protection of classified documents, the latter of a continuous nature. As a result of this qualification, “he imposed the joint sanction to be served of perpetual deprivation of liberty.”
In the second process, the Court declared the accused responsible for the crimes of continuous bribery as a means to an end to commit falsification of public documents, as well as influence peddling and tax evasion, both of a continuous nature. In this case, the court imposed “the joint sanction of 20 years of deprivation of liberty.”
In both processes, the note indicates that accessory sanctions were applied against Gil Fernández, including the confiscation of assets, the prohibition of the exercise of functions that involve administration or availability of human, material and financial resources and the deprivation of public rights, “among others.” The statement does not detail which assets will be confiscated or the specific temporal scope of the additional disqualifications and deprivations.
To justify the severity of the penalties, the Court claims to have taken into account article 147 of the Constitution of the Republic, as well as articles 71.1 and 29 of the Penal Coderelated to the purposes of the sanction and the evaluation of the “social harm” of the acts committed by the accused.
The official text goes beyond the technical description of the crimes and qualifies Gil Fernández’s behavior in political and moral terms. According to the TSP, the accused, “through corrupt and malingering actions, took advantage of the powers granted by the responsibilities he assumed to obtain personal benefits, receiving money from foreign firms and bribing other public officials to legalize the acquisition of assets.”
Likewise, the note adds that “he deceived the leadership of the country and the people he represented, thereby generating damage to the economy” and failed to comply with “work processes with the classified official information he handled”, which he “subtracted, damaged and finally made it available to the enemy’s services.”
The Court maintains that these “highly harmful behaviors evidenced an ethical, moral and political degradation in the accused” that would make him deserving of “a severe criminal response.” To support this conclusion, the note cites article 4 of the Constitutionwhich establishes that “treason against the Homeland is the most serious of crimes and whoever commits it is subject to the most severe sanctions.”
Although the statement invokes this precept, in the list of crimes for which he is convicted, espionage and multiple figures of corruption are mentioned, but an autonomous accusation of “treason against the Homeland” is not explicitly stated.
The TSP adds that “the sanctioned acts also violate the United Nations Convention against Corruption“, of which Cuba is a State party. However, the statement does not provide data on the volume of the alleged bribes, the amount of economic damages or details about the “foreign firms” that would have paid Gil Fernández, which limits the possibility of independently evaluating the real magnitude of the case.
In the particular case of the sanction of perpetual deprivation of liberty, the Court points out that, “even if the sentence is not challenged, the Court processes an appeal ex officio, as a guarantee for the accused included in the Criminal Procedure Law.” That is, even if the defense does not appeal, the judicial institution itself must promote a review of that aspect of the sentence, according to the current procedure.
The statement also states that, “once the appeals against the sentences are resolved, if his responsibility is ratified, a joint and single sanction will be imposed to be executed among all the sentences imposed, as provided for in Article 86 of the Penal Code In practice, this means that the two sanctions (life imprisonment and 20 years in prison), along with the accessory ones, must be harmonized into a single sentence for its final execution, although the text does not explain what specific criterion will be applied in this case.
Finally, the note ensures that “both the accused and his lawyers recognized that during the processing of the cases and the oral proceedings, the rights and guarantees enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic and the Law of Criminal Procedure.” The Court does not indicate in what context this statement was made (whether in court, in writing or in the minutes), nor were details offered regarding the participation of the defense, access to evidence or the publicity of the oral hearings.
