SAN LUIS POTOSÍ, Mexico.- The Cuban opposition and influencer Manuel Milanes was shot on Thursday morning near the community of Ave Maria, an area belonging to Collier County, Florida. The incident was confirmed by CubaNet independently, with a source close to the Cuban.
According to the journalist’s version Mario VallejoMilanés, a friend of the businessman, was shot by a man who was pointing his gun at a woman and a child. Milanés was wounded when he stood between the attacker and the victims.
According to Vallejo, emergency services immediately took the Cuban to a hospital in South Florida, where he underwent a successful first surgery.
“Everything seems to indicate that it had nothing to do with him, a person was arguing with a woman who was with two children and when he saw that this person was aiming at the children, he apparently intervened, and this person would have shot him,” said the journalist in a Facebook broadcast.
The news was initially communicated by Wilfredo Beyra, chancellor of the Council for Anti-Communist Warfare (CPGA), an organization in which Milanés is also a member.
Beyra said in a live broadcast on Facebook that the attack on Milanés, which nearly caused his death, occurred in front of the opposition leader’s house and is being investigated by US authorities.
Several local media reports in the United States refer to an incident that occurred in the same area and with the same characteristics.
Fox4 and NBC They agree that in the Ave Maria area, in Collier County, a man was pointing a gun at a woman and her son when another man (presumably Milanés) confronted him and was shot.
The Collier County Sheriff’s Office said it arrested the suspect, who fled the scene after the crash.
Hilberto Callejas, 26, was arrested on 62nd Avenue NE in Golden Gate Estates after law enforcement managed to locate him. He faces charges including aggravated assault with a firearm, aggravated assault, child abuse and others.
Milanés, who defines himself as an entrepreneur, was born in Cuba in the municipality of Cerro. He studied economics and earned a degree in Economics from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Havana.
He emigrated to the Dominican Republic almost 20 years ago and, after 12 years there, he arrived in the United States.
“I think that diversity is where strength lies, not precisely in everyone thinking the same or in people stopping saying what they think because they think it offends others. I think that is not freedom. Freedom is you defending what you are, without offending others, without transgressing others, but defending what you are and defending your values, what you believe is right,” she said in an interview with CubaNet on one occasion.
News in development…