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Summary of 2024

It was a year revealing the Cuban Justice system's deficiencies, corruption and subordination to those in power

It was also evident that the judicial system is harsher on dissidents than the assailants of women and girls.

Madrid
The president of the Supreme Court of Cuba, Rubén Remigio Ferro.
The president of the Supreme Court of Cuba, Rubén Remigio Ferro. Screenshot from 'Round Table'

Although the corruption, deficiencies and lack of independence affecting the Cuban Justice system are well known, in 2024 DIARIO DE CUBA surgically dissected them.

The case that best illustrates the Cuban judicial system's subordination to power was revealed in a DIARIO DE CUBA exclusive in October when it released a video of a trial in which the close relationship between a son of the late dictator Fidel Castro, Alejandro Castro Soto del Valle, and alleged drug traffickers, came to light, but was ignored by the Provincial Court of Cienfuegos in 2015.

In 2014 Cuban-Americans Enrique Anicio Artiles Mata and Elvis Artiles Martin (father and son) were arrested and charged with drug trafficking in the United States. In Cuba, to which they traveled frequently, they had family and friendship ties to five citizens who a year later were prosecuted for money laundering and forging documents, along with another resident in the United States. 

At the oral hearing, three of the five defendants described close ties between Artiles Mata and Castro Soto del Valle. Neither the president of the Court, nor the Prosecutor's Office, nor the defense attorneys requested that Fidel Castro's son testify as a witness.

As DIARIO DE CUBA legal team member Edel González Jiménez pointed out, the crimes in which Castro Soto del Valle may have been involved, such as money laundering and a cover-up of drug trafficking, have not expired, since the 25 years established by law have not elapsed that would protect him from prosecution.

Even if before October the president of the Supreme Court of Cuba, Rubén Remigio Ferro, was unaware of the links between Fidel Castro's son and alleged drug traffickers, after the exclusive revelation by DIARIO DE CUBA he is obliged to investigate the member of the Castro family and ensure that he does not go unpunished for probable crimes related to drug trafficking. To date, however, this has not happened.

It should not be ruled out that the authorities have blackmailed him, taking into account that he, apparently, guaranteed the impunity of the former president of the Provincial Court of Cienfuegos and former representative Tania Correa Lorenzo, an alleged perpetrator of embezzlement and forgery, as revealed to DDC by sources at the Court's Public Attention Directorate in September. For that case, he was reportedly reprimanded by the then second secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), José Ramón Machado Ventura.

In June former judge and political asylum seeker in the United States Melody González Pedraza revealed to DIARIO DE CUBA, in an exclusive interview, that the Supreme Court issued an Instruction, signed by Remigio Ferro and approved by its Governing Council, containing precise instructions regarding the criminal policy to be applied to Cubans imprisoned for participating in the anti-government protests that broke out on July 11, 2021.  

The main directives were to maintain provisional detention once the case was received by the courts, to impose rigorous sentences entailing confinement, to grant parole only in exceptional situations, and for the convicts to serve most of their time in prison.

For those who were lucky enough to be released on parole, "rigorous control" was to be exercised by all the territorial authorities: "Police, Security and political organizations."

In February, during the annual review of the Supreme Court held in Havana, Miguel Díaz-Canel demanded that the judges be more severe and intransigent, González Pedraza told DIARIO DE CUBA in another exclusive interview.

In that exclusive the magistrate explained how the PCC, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Prosecutor's Office challenge judges if they impose sanctions less severe than those requested by the prosecutors.

In fact, the judicial system goes easier on perpetrators of femicide and sex offenders than on peaceful protesters.

In July DIARIO DE CUBA revealed the Cuban State's responsibility in the femicide of Jessica Castillo. Castillo's assailant had committed a similar murder in 2011, for which he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Having served approximately one-third of his sentence, he received the benefit of probation.

This same benefit has been denied to many Cubans convicted for the 11-J protests, who should have already received it.

González Jiménez explained that when one convicted of a murder or rape is going to be granted parole, "the protocol indicates that the re-educators, together with the prosecutor, who must evaluate the appropriateness of endorsing the parole, have to ask the victim's relatives for their opinions."

If the case reaches the court and their opinions have not been requested, the court is obliged to suspend the case and demand that this step be taken, the jurist added.

In the case of Emelina's confessed murderer, this step was skipped, such that the requirement was violated, according to a relative of the victim who informed the Gender Observatory of the feminist magazine Alas Tensas (OGAT) and the feminist platform Yo Sí Te Creo en Cuba (I Believe You in Cuba), who shared this information with DDC.

González Jiménez also explained that in Cuba, before the perpetrator of a murder or rape is released on parole, psychological evaluations are not carried out.

Another clear example of the regime's lenience towards abusers of women and girls, belying the official rhetoric, was  the three-year prison sentence imposed on Maikel Solano Arévalo, found guilty of sexually abusing a minor under four years of age, handed down over a year after the events, and only after an appeal. He was initially sentenced to three years of correctional labor without incarceration.

The new sentence, imposed on the sexual aggressor by the Provincial Court of Granma, falls within the sanctioning framework provided for in the Criminal Code for sexual abuse against a person under 12 years of age, which is two to five years of incarceration. If Solano Arévalo demonstrates good conduct, he could be released on parole in one year and six months.

Former Cuban judge Maylin Fernández Suris, an expert in family affairs and gender violence, and a lawyer for the DDC, pointed to the delay in the administration of justice in this case, and the failure to issue a restraining order to protect the minor.

The year 2024 also demonstrated the delegitimization and disintegration of part of the Cuban judicial system. Every month there are fewer professional judges and prosecutors willing to be accomplices of Rubén Remigio Ferro and the regime.

In January, the Deputy Attorney General of the Republic, Reinaldo Cruz Rivera, admitted in Ciego de Ávila that there are more prosecutors who leave the sector than graduates.

In June DIARIO DE CUBA learned that the Municipal Court of Encrucijada, in Villa Clara, had run out of staff. González Pedraza, the former judge requesting political asylum in the United States, had worked in that court.

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