SAN LUIS POTOSÍ, Mexico.- This Tuesday, September 24, the Court of the municipality Niceto Pérez, in Guantánamo, sentenced the independent journalist and collaborator of CubaNet Yeris Curbelo Aguilera for the alleged crime of “minor injuries.”
The Center for a Free Cuba reported In a statement by the agency’s journalist Palenque Vision He was transferred to the Guantanamo Combined Prison by State Security agents after the trial.
Odalis Legrá Castellanos, wife of the reportertold the organization that the proceedings against Curbelo were rigged.
In his testimony, he said that the defense attorney did not agree with the punishment he was being charged with, since the journalist had several injuries and certificates stating the wounds, but this was not mentioned in the trial.
“When the members of the court stood up to deliberate, a State Security agent entered where they were deliberating and when they left, they were given the same sentence that the prosecution had requested, acquitting one of the aggressors who was also being tried,” he said from Guantanamo.
In this way, the aggressor Adrián Fuentes Laffita, who attacked Curbelo With a machete, he was released and the other three were brought as witnesses against the opponent.
The alleged crimes
The Center for a Free Cuba, in a report of the events for which he was accused, explained that the journalist’s son, Jessy James Curbelo Garrido, 16, was attacked in the early hours of April 14 by Miguel Mosqueda, Douglas Ismark Mazar Gongora and Mariano Reyes.
They attacked and kicked him, causing a sprained right arm, facial injuries and multiple convulsions due to blows to the head. Jessy James was transferred to the “Pedro Agustín Pérez” Pediatric Hospital in Guantánamo and the attackers escaped unharmed.
Although the police claimed that they had been fined, there is no proof of this.
In the same place where the young man was beaten, Yeris Curbelo Aguilera was attacked a few months later, on June 16. The assailants were the same, accompanied by Adrián Fuentes Lafita, 41 years old.
According to Curbelo’s own statements, he was beaten and stoned, and Fuentes Lafita injured him with a machete, leaving him with two wounds that had to be sutured on his right hand.
However, State Security ordered him to be taken alone to the police station in Guantanamo. Two days later, he was released on bail, charged with “minor injuries.”
An immoral condemnation
“It’s crazy and further proof that State Security is behind all these attacks to fabricate a common crime against me and imprison me because of my political activism in the ranks of the resistance and independent journalism. How is it possible that these individuals brutally attack one of my children and me, causing us injuries, and it turns out that I am arrested and charged with minor injuries!” he denounced.
Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina, director of the Palenque Visión agency and coordinator of the Eastern Democratic Alliance, described the sentence imposed as immoral.
“It is good to remember that Yeris Curbelo Aguilera has carried out outstanding activism, she has notable leadership in her community, the Caimanera villagea place complicated by the presence of the Guantanamo Naval Base and the security forces and measures by the Cuban regime that exist there,” he said.
She also said that the activist’s son has been psychologically affected and has had to receive psychological treatment from professionals.
Last year, the reporter covered the protests in Caimanera, Guantanamo, on May 6.
Yeris was documenting and reporting the attacks and violence against demonstrators at said protest, committed by elements of State Security.
