The Municipal Court of Matanzas annulled the oral hearing scheduled for this Friday without offering explanations or setting a new date.
MADRID, Spain.- The Municipal Court of Matanzas suspended at the last minute the trial against Cuban intellectuals and activists Alina Bárbara López Hernández and Jenny Pantoja, whose Oral hearing was scheduled for the morning of this Friday, January 30, without offering precise explanations or setting a new date for its celebration.
The annulment of the trial was recorded in a court order dated January 29 and received by the defense attorney on Thursday afternoon, when both defendants were already in Matanzas to attend the hearing.
Jenny Pantoja He recounted in a social media post. that he had received the court summons the previous Monday at his home in Havana, while neither López Hernández nor the lawyer were formally notified, despite residing in the same jurisdiction of the court. “How does the summons from that court arrive first at my house in Havana than at the lawyer and Alina who live in the same jurisdiction of that institution?” he questioned.
As she explained, she and her husband traveled to Matanzas early to guarantee their punctual presence at the trial. However, hours later they received a call from the lawyer informing them that the court had annulled the accusation, “without precise explanations and without setting a new date for the judicial farce.”
Pantoja denounced that the process is being delayed indefinitely while the precautionary measures imposed against both remain in force. “The trial seems to be delayed infinitely. We have been patient, but we are not willing to continue ‘forever and ever’ unjustly limited by precautionary measures,” she wrote.
In his complaint, he maintained that the case does not respond to a common crime, but to political punishment. “This is not a trial for an attack, it is a political trial, which demonstrates the weakness of the regime by evading carrying out a process due to the high cost it has for them,” he stated, adding that the suspension shows that “the Cuban judicial system is in a total crisis and in complete disrepute.”
For her part, Alina Bárbara López Hernández had already warned days before that the process against her and Pantoja was based on “false crimes fabricated by the police, which thereby complied with an orientation of the Counterintelligence bodies,” and that the prolonged delay did not respond to privileges, but to the political cost of putting two intellectuals with public recognition on trial.
The case dates back to June 2024, when both were charged with the alleged crime of attack, after an episode of police violence that occurred during a civic action. Since then, the file has been marked by delays, lack of official information and allegations of manipulation of the judicial process. In recent years, both activists have been subjected to constant harassment, repression, imprisonment and threats.
