Prosecutor’s Office Asks for 15 Years in Prison for a Cuban Writer

related to one of the dozens of July 11, 2021 Protests

By 14ymedio

HAVANATIMES – In San José de las Lajas (Mayabeque) a trial began this Thursday against seven July 11th (11J) protesters, including the writer María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez and her sister Angélica, for whom various activists have mobilized in recent hours.

Those responsible for Ilíada Ediciones informed through their networks that the income from the sales of Garrido Rodríguez’s book Examination of Time will go entirely to the author, “who, a long time ago, became an activist in Cuba for the defense of human rights and the human rights of women,” detail the editors.

For her, the Prosecutor’s Office asks for 15 years, for the crimes of “attack,” “disrespect,” “resistance,” “public disorder” and “organization to commit a crime.” In statements to 14ymedio, Garrido’s husband, Michel Valladares Cala, described the trial as a “circus,” in which he even insists that the prosecutors exposed the contradictions that the police officers incurred in offering their testimonies. “They haven’t told a single truth, a pure lie, a pure contradiction between them,” says Valladares, who says, however, that the lawyers “are working well.”

For the writer’s sister, Angélica Garrido Rodríguez, prosecutor Ruth Rodríguez Reina asks for a 10-year sentence. The rest of the defendants are:

– Giorbis Pardo del Toro (37), 18 years
– Alexis Pedro Acosta Hernández (45), 13 years
– Yanet Sánchez Cocho (39), 10 years
– Patricia Lázara Acosta Sánchez (20), 7 years
– Osmany Hernández Rodríguez (34) , 6 years

In that same court in San José de Las Lajas, the process against the 11J demonstrators in Batabanó was carried out, ending on Tuesday, although initially it was expected to end on Wednesday.

In it, there was no change between the requests of prosecutor Ariagne Pérez Pérez, recently included in the list of repressors of the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FDHC):

– Vladimir Castillo Llanes (26), 14 years
– Jorge Yenier Ortiz Aguilera (31), 10 years
– Rogelio Lázaro Domínguez Pérez (26), 8 years
– Manuel Velázquez Licea (39), 8 years
– Alien Molina Castell (38), 7 years
– Mailene Noguera Santiesteban (34), 6 years and 6 months
– Humberto Monrabals Camps (65), 6 years
– Arturo Valentín Riverón (48), 6 years
– Enmanuel Robles Pérez (32), 6 years
– Jesús Pérez Quintero ( 27), 5 years of correctional work with internment
– Emelina Pendás Rodríguez (46), 5 years of correctional work with internment
– Yusmely Moreno González (42), 3 years
– Danger Acosta Justi (43), 3 years
– Sergio Enseñat Valladares (29), 1 year of correctional work with internment
– Yaroski Amat Salabarria (38), 1 year and 6 months of correctional work with internment

On the other hand, three young people arrested for demonstrating on July 11 and tried in Havana this week have seen their sentences reduced by the Prosecutor’s Office. Nelson Néstor Rivero Garzón and Emiyoslán Román Rodríguez are 17 years old and the other, Yensy Jorge Machado González, 18.

From 15 years in prison requested by the prosecutor of the Municipal Court of Diez de Octubre, Mabel Palacios Aties — also included in the list of repressors of the FDHC — the judges reduced the possible sentence to 7 years, reports Radio Television Martí with the source  being the father of one of the defendants.

The high prison sentences for the rest of those prosecuted in that court are ratified:

– Elieser Gordín Rojas (42), 27 years in prison
– Roberto Ferrer Gener (48 years), 20 years
– Santiago Vázquez León (21), 20 years
– Yosney Emilio Román Rodríguez (25), 20 years
– Carlos Luis Águila Socarrás ( 34), 20 years
– Frandy González León (27), 20 years
– Adonay López López (34), 20 years
– Harold Michel Mena Nuviola (28), 20 years
– Jaime Alcide Firdó Rodríguez (21), 20 years
– Alejandro Bécquer Arias (23), 20 years
– Amaury Leyva Prieto (29), 20 years
– Julián Yasmany Díaz Mena (34), 20 years
– Raudel Saborín González (24), 20 years
– Juan Carlos Morales Herrera (49), 20 years
– Eduardo Alvarez Rigal (31), 20 years
– Yasiel Arnaldo Córdova Rodríguez (25), 20 years
– Yeiner Ibáñez Boude (19), 18 years
– Frank Daniel Roig Sotolongo (19), 15 years
– Yasell Guerra Campos (19), 15 years
– Marcos Antonio Alfonso Breto (19) , 15 years

The trial held in Havana was scheduled to last until Friday, but it ended on Tuesday, explains Cubalex, because “they had no evidence and they finished it earlier, just like the one in Batabanó.”

Read more from Cuba here in Havana Times.