Spanish Driver to Face Prosecution in Cuba for Homicide

HAVANA TIMES — The Granma newspaper announced today that Spanish citizen Angel Carromero Barrios will be charged for homicide in the wake of an automobile accident that claimed the life of Cuban political opposition leader Oswaldo Paya.

The Cuban government reported that Carromero has been “informed of the charge of homicide.” At the same time, authorities allowed another foreign passenger from the same car, Swedish rightwing political activist Jens Aron Modig, to return to his country “despite the illegal activities he had already carried out in violation of his travel status.”

The decision to press charges was announced hours after the press conference in Havana in which both men made statements about what happened in the accident this past July 22 close to the eastern Cuban city of Bayamo.

Carromero was identified as the vice secretary of “Nuevas Generaciones” (a branch of Spain’s conservative Partido Popular) and was said to be “close” to former Spanish president and anti-Cuba hardliner Jose Maria Aznar. The young man was shown to have traveled to Cuba with the objective of providing funding to Paya’s opposition Movimiento Cristiano Liberacion organization.