The Havana Municipal Court sentenced three men accused of destroying several statues of Cuban national hero José Martí to a prison sentence of one to 15 years, who they found guilty of the crimes of desecration and damage to the cultural heritage of the city. Island.
The convicts are Panter Rodríguez Baró to 15 years in prison, Yoel Prieto Tamayo to 9 years and Jorge Ernesto Pérez García to one year, who were tried in oral and open proceedings on December 21, 2020, the provincial court said Tuesday. Popular in Havana.
According to Cause 61 of 2020, the defendants were charged with “defamation of institutions and organizations and of heroes and martyrs, of ongoing nature, and of damage to cultural heritage assets.”
The Court considered the facts that took place in the early morning of January 1, 2020, as proven, when Rodríguez and Prieto, “in concert to discredit the image of José Martí,” began spilling pig blood on busts and banners of the national hero and heroes of the revolution who were on the open road.
It specifies that among them there was a bust of the politician, thinker, writer, journalist, philosopher and poet José Martí (1853-1895) in the editorial of Bohemia magazine, declared Cultural Heritage of the Cuban Nation.
A year ago, when these vandalism events sparked outrage and condemnation and rejection from both pro-government supporters and Cuban dissidents, a hitherto unknown opposition group – calling itself Clandestines – claimed responsibility with photos and posts published on the social networks.
The note published by the Cuban State News Agency (ACN) indicates that the defendants “bought six stones of the drug, commonly known as cocaine, with some of the money received by a Cuban citizen living in the United States that they used to the criminal events “.
In the case of the other defendant, Jorge Ernesto Pérez García says that these actions were recorded with his cell phone and “he forwarded them to his tapes who lived in the US, who published them to the world on Facebook’s social networks. , Instagram. And other sites “.
The judicial authority also issued an additional sanction for the three of them to be deprived of their public rights for the same period of the sentence imposed, with “the resulting civil responsibility to repair the property damage caused, in accordance with the value of the property affected. “.
The note indicates that both in the handling of the case and in the oral proceedings, the legal proceedings against Rodríguez, Prieto and Pérez “were in accordance with established procedural guarantees and respect for a fair trial, as enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic. “.