Four Years Without Justice

Four Years Without Justice / Mario Lleonart
Posted on May 14, 2015

May 5th was the fourth anniversary of the brutal beating of activist
Juan Wilfredo Soto García, which resulted in his death two days later.
It was followed bythe deaths of noted leaders Laura Pollán and Oswaldo
Payá Sardiñas, in which many also acknowledge the presence of the
criminal hand. The effectiveness of extrajudicial execution, verified in
the case of Juan Wilfredo Soto and amply proven by other governments, is
also beyond doubt in Cuba.

The regime that began with firing squads no longer needs them. The
moratorium on the death penalty since 2003 is possible because those in
power have perfected their method of eliminating political opponents,
paying for it at the lowest possible price. North Korea, which
"judicially" exterminates without ceremony, as demonstrated again a few
days ago, should take lessons from its more sophisticated Cuban allies,
the best students of Machiavelli.

The common denominator in the three cases cited above is the lack
of impartial investigations, which would most benefit murder suspects
who were truly innocent. Four years after his death, what has happened
in Juan Wilfredo's case?

– His closest relatives, his two children, well aware of the criminality
of the regime, opted for safety and emigrated through the Refugee
Program of the United States.

– The impartial investigation requested of the Attorney General's Office
has not provided any conclusion.

– Not a single witness from the list that I gave to the Provincial
Prosecutor of Villa Clara was called to testify. When I recently went to
Prosecutor Osmel Fleites Cárdenas seeking information, he listened to my
statement, reviewed the file, and confirmed that there is sufficient
evidence to open a case, but then explained to me that he "no longer has
anything to do with the matter because the investigation has been handed
over to the Military Prosecutor."

– It has been impossible to contact the family of Alexis Herrera
Rodriguez, then a neighbor at 204 5th Street in the Camacho subdivision
of Santa Clara. He was one of the three soldiers who participated in the
fatal beating of Soto, the investigation of which was handled with total
security by officers of the Political Police. Several witnesses placed
him at the scene of the beating that fatal morning. He committed suicide
by gunshot on Sunday May 8, 2011, Mother's Day (the day we buried Soto),
but survived some five days and was ultimately buried with a ceremony
surrounded by heavy security on Friday May 13.

– It has also proved impossible to locate the other two police officers
who participated in the beating—a man and a woman, twenty-year-olds,
like Alexis—although it is rumored that both are now out of the
military, at least from outward appearances, and that one is probably
interned in a psychiatric hospital.

We live our lives aware of the dangers we face in denouncing the reality
that extra-judicial executions are carried out with impunity in Cuba. We
are supported in this every day in different ways, but we have no
alternative if we truly want to represent the God of Justice whom we say
we serve and to whose protection we entrust ourselves.

And in the case of Juan Wilfredo, having exhausted the meager options of
the rigged Cuba legal system, we have no recourse but to appeal to the
established international mechanisms, for which we have the support of
the Commission on Human Rights, headed by Elizardo Sanchez, and of the
beleaguered organization Cubalex.

6 May 2015

Source: Four Years Without Justice / Mario Lleonart | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/four-years-without-justice-mario-lleonart/