Cuba: Alejandro Gil Gets Life Imprisonment +20 Years Extra
for spying and several financial crimes
HAVANA TIMES – After the closed door trials last month against the former Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil Fernandez, on the evening of December 8, 2025, the Supreme Court published the sentences.
As a result of the first trial, the Court found Gil Fernandez guilty “of the crimes of espionage; acts detrimental to economic activity or contracting; as well as bribery, theft and damage of documents or other objects in official custody, and violation of official seals and regulations for the protection of classified documents, the latter being of a continuing nature.” Consequently, he was “given a combined sentence” of “life imprisonment.”
In the second trial, the former minister was found “guilty of the crime of bribery of a continuing nature as a means to commit falsification of public documents; as well as influence peddling and tax evasion, both of a continuing nature.” The Court established a “combined sentence of 20 years of imprisonment.”
According to the court’s statement, both case files also include additional sanctions such as the confiscation of assets, a ban on holding positions related to administration or the management of human, material, or financial resources, and the loss of civil rights, among other measures.
The Court reported that both the defendant and the Prosecutor’s Office have ten days to file the corresponding appeals. In the case of the life sentence, even if it is not challenged, the court will process the appeal ex officio. Once the appeals are resolved and if the criminal liability is upheld, a single combined sentence will be formed out of the penalties imposed.
For years, Alejandro Gil Fernandez was one of the most trusted figures of President Miguel Diaz-Canel and one of the public faces of the Cuban regime’s failed economic policies between 2018 and 2024, particularly the so-called “Tarea Ordenamiento” reforms of 2021. His name now joins the list of once-powerful officials who have been cast out from the upper ranks of the Havana regime.
[Editor’s Note: No names of the other Cuban officials implicated in the espionage, bribery or other financial crimes were mentioned. It remains to be seen if they will be charged or Gil will take the fall for all of them.]
First published by El Toque in Spanish and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.