Havana/The Cuban police have captured in record time the alleged murderer of Captain Leonel Mesa Rodríguez, head of sector in Caibarién, Villa Clara, who was found dead On a road on Friday morning. The arrest occurred just one day after the crime, at 4:45 p.m. on Saturday in the city of Remedios, the Interior Ministry confirmed in A note Published on social networks, where it is also reported that the detainee carried the regulatory gun and a white weapon, both used in the murder.
The authorities did not give details about the identity of the detainee – initially it was said that it was a “killing and trafficker of major cattle” -, which generated suspicions even among citizens. “They do not say name and surname as they usually do, it is very rare,” wrote a reader in the comments at the foot of the official note on Facebook. Other users, expressed their bewilderment in the face of the speed of the process: “How fast, and for the Cuban on foot and nothing passes.”
A good part of the commentators asked for the aggressor a severe sanction or even capital punishment, an expectation that the authorities have been willing to comply. “The detainee will be submitted to the corresponding criminal process, with the rigor established by the revolutionary justice and in accordance with the magnitude and severity of the act committed,” said the ministry in the official note.
Fast and hard justice for the murderer contrasts with the slow and indifference with which the authorities face less striking crimes, involving common citizens. The disparity did not go unnoticed: “I am shocking how quickly this fact was clarified and many other cruel or more who are still unsolved. Why will it be?” Ironized another Internet.
The captain’s death has been an opportunity for the regime to close ranks around its police forces
The death of the captain has been an opportunity for the regime to close ranks around its police forces and send a message of unity and strength. The table coffin toured the streets of his hometown, Taguasco (Sancti Spíritus) aboard a military vehicle, with an honor guard, in a solemn ceremony that is interpreted as a notice to the internal enemy.
In social networks circulated numerous photos of the wake, where the police coffin on which a Cuban flag was held and, on the sides, two floral offerings had ties with the names of the Army General Raúl Castro and President Miguel Díaz-Canel were seen.
Also attended by high positions of the Villa Clara and Sancti Spíritus party, as well as the Interior Ministry.
The official spokesman Henry Omar Pérez, from Villa Clara, who has been one of the most active in the Dissemination of information On the murdered policeman, as well as one of the most “combative” in his messages, he described to Mesa as a “colossus” of public order, a man who “day and night furrowed to the most remote paths of the city of Caibarién, in the effort to effectively fulfill the missions to him assigned.”
Mesa, who entered the Ministry of Interior in 2004, was recognized with multiple distinctions – 12 medals were exhibited in the funeral – including that of “Internationalist Combatter in Ethiopia”, and more recently, the “Praise to virtue”, granted last June. At 62, he still patrolled his assigned area without relay, the official press stands out. According to Colonel Eddy Sierra Arias, head of the General Directorate of the PNR, Mesa was an “example of values, commitment, sense of belonging, hours of sleeplessness and tireless fight against crime.”
“There is no doubt: if I were not a policeman, a finger had not moved,” a reader settled in front of the flood of praise that the ruling party has dedicated to the captain. Just a few hours after the crime, the official narrative was already clear: it was a “vile act, an infamous outrage,” as Henry Omar Pérez wrote – known for having access to police privileged information – in a second publication, where he described the murderer as “a cowardly unable to face Leonel’s greatness”.
However, unofficial testimonies have also emerged that offer different nuances and refer to it with the nickname of “living lime”, referring to their supposed abusive methods as head of sector.
Leonel Mesa Rodríguez was found on Friday morning “with six white weapon wounds and a shot in the head”, allegedly made with his own firearm, in the popular council the reform of the municipality of Caibarién. Videos circulated in networks where his body lying on the road was seen while several officers diverted traffic.
In a few hours, his death generated a flood of reactions between those who ask for a hard hand for the aggressor and who fear that the murder of a policeman will return Cuba to the dark times of the executions. The tension of the case is concentrated in a phrase of Raúl Castro that the related to the regime have revived on social networks: “Who kills iron, dies of iron.”
