Havana/Through a note read almost without taking her eyes off the paper by the announcer of the noon news on Canal Caribe, the Supreme People’s Court (TSP) has announced that the trial against the former Minister of Economy Alejandro Gil Fernandezthe highest-ranking official prosecuted by the Cuban justice system in recent decades, will take place in less than 24 hours. The hearing, scheduled for 9:30 this Tuesday, will be conducted by the Chamber of Crimes against State Security.
According to the TSP note, the process will be held behind closed doors for “reasons of National Security”, based on articles 153 of the Constitution and 477.1 of the Criminal Procedure Law. Only “the parties and persons authorized by the court” will have access, a decision that confirms the opacity with which the Government has handled the case since the minister was dismissed in February 2024.
The accused’s sister, María Victoria Gil Fernández, assures 14ymedio that the family did not know anything beforehand and claimed to feel “shocked” by the news. “It’s outrageous,” said the former Cuban television presenter. Likewise, he explains that the process will be carried out in two independent trials, and that tomorrow will be the one that includes the accusation of espionage, for which the Prosecutor’s Office is asking for 30 years in prison.
However, the TSP statement does not mention the word “espionage” and does not provide any precision about the crime for which the former minister will be tried.
Likewise, a source close to the case says that Gil’s relatives do not even know who the “authorized people” are or if they are part of them.
“If they are so sure of their case, why hide it?”
The decision cancels the demand of the former minister’s daughter, Laura María Gil González, in their social networks that the trial would be transparent and public, so that citizens would directly know the arguments, evidence and details about his father’s alleged crimes. “If they are so sure of their case, why hide it?” he questioned, demanding a process that is not limited to official notes or controlled leaks.
His position multiplied in digital spaces, where messages of support as well as criticism and speculation abounded. Even former spy René González published on Facebook a text that does not coincide with the official story, by demanding an open process. “I’m going to swim against the current,” he wrote, remembering that “Alejandro Gil is not guilty until proven guilty in a trial. The presumption of innocence is one of the cornerstones of due process.” González clarified that he did not know the former minister personally, but defended his former subordinates: “I only have feelings of gratitude for them.” He also criticized the “explosive statement from the Prosecutor’s Office, after such a deafening silence,” which, in his opinion, unleashed “a debate that does us more harm than good.”
“We are not in a position to ask people to believe by faith,” says former spy René González
The former member of Red Avispa presented the background for televising it: “This implies, of course, that the demand for a public, open and transparent trial is satisfied. Cases 1 and 2 of 1989, or the trial of Marcos Rodríguez for the Humboldt 7 crime, could well serve as a reference for us. We are not in a position to ask people to believe by faith.” His publication closed with a call for serenity, transparency, popular control and accountability.
The official statement from the TSP stressed that “due process” has been guaranteed, arguing that both the accused and his defense had access to the file and the provisional conclusions of the Prosecutor’s Office and presented their defenses. However, neither the specific charges nor the evidence supporting them have been publicly disclosed, an absence of transparency reminiscent of other high-profile criminal proceedings on the Island.
Alejandro Gil Fernández is defended by the lawyer Abel Solá Lópezwith extensive experience in trials against State security. One of them was the one who sentenced, in 2017, Alina López Miyares and her husband, Félix Martín Milanés Fajardo, to 13 and 17 years in prison, respectively, for espionage. That process, carried out on October 2 in the Courtroom of the Marianao Military Court, was also behind closed doors and “without access to the relatives of the accused.”
