PRESS RELEASE
Following up on the criminal proceedings associated with the violent disturbances that took place on July 11th in Cuba, the Chief Prosecutor of the Directorate of Criminal Proceedings of the Attorney General's Office of the Republic, Lisnay María Mederos Torres and Dixán Fuentes Guzmán, Chief Prosecutor of the Directorate of Attention to Citizens of the Attorney General's Office of the Republic, provided the following information to the national public opinion:
- The investigations into the criminal proceedings, where the participation in facts constituting crimes was confirmed, are still ongoing, including those of greater connotation involving acts of violence against people, authorities and public and private property.
- Precautionary measures of bail, house arrest and, in the most serious cases, provisional detention have been ordered. Of these proceedings, a group has already been concluded at present, in which the Prosecutor’s Office examines the procedural decisions to be adopted, in accordance with the criminal procedure law, and the rest are close to completion.
- The proceedings brought before the courts have been fundamentally for crimes against public order and tranquility, in which public disorder predominates. In this type of proceedings, the custodial sanction extends up to one year or fines of up to 300 installments, each of which can be up to 50 pesos, which means that they can reach up to 15,000 pesos.
- The central role of the Prosecutor's Office is to ensure the legality of the actions, the terms in decision-making, the determination of individual responsibility and the concurrent circumstances, based on the results of the investigative processes that are carried out.
- In the case of minors in conflict with the law, it is important to reiterate that, according to article 16 of the Penal Code, criminal responsibility is enforceable on the natural person from the age of 16, at the time of committing the punishable act.
- There is also an adaptation rule for cases over 16 and under 18 years of age, for whom the minimum and maximum limits can be reduced to half the penalties, and for those who are between 18 and 20 years of age, that possible decrease is up to a third.
- Regarding young people between 16 and 18 years of age who participated in these criminal acts, the Prosecutor's Office has appointed, for their protection, different prosecutors from those who carry out the control of the criminal proceeding and the exercise of public criminal action.
- In this sense, the precautionary measures to be imposed were examined; some were initially assured with provisional imprisonment, which was modified as the investigations continued. Those who carried out extremely serious acts are still under this condition. However, the precautionary measures imposed and the controls of criminal proceedings are systematically examined to ensure an adequate procedural decision.
- Prosecutors, among other actions, interview parents or legal representatives, warning them of the fulfillment of their obligations, as well as deepen in conditioning situations of a social, economic or other nature that affect them, and influence the competent bodies for their solution, in particular the Ministry of Labor and Social Security and the Ministry of Public Health.
- As for minors under 16 years of age, who are not subjects of Criminal Law, but incurred in criminal conduct, the process is conducted as established in Decree Law No. 64/82, concerning the System for the Attention to Minors with Conduct Disorders.
- In accordance with law, in such cases the Office of the Prosecutor exercises control over the prosecution of children and adolescents with conduct disorders or who committed acts constituting crimes. The cases are examined by the Council of Attention to Minors of the Ministry of the Interior, and compliance with what is established by the heads of sectors and officers of the Prevention of Minors of the Police is verified, with the participation of social workers of the Federation of Cuban Women (NGO with consultative status before ECOSOC), Public Health and Education officials, among other community actors.
- Minors under 16 years of age in this situation are being examined by multidisciplinary teams of experts from the Centers for the Evaluation, Analysis and Orientation of Minors, who will recommend the measures to be adopted, taking into account the best interests of the minor, and national and international legal obligations.
- Regarding the attention to dissatisfaction, it was reported that to date 308 people have been assisted in the offices of attention to the population of the Attorney General's Office due to the disturbances of 11of July.
- These persons filed 99 complaints and petitions: Among the main dissatisfactions raised by the interested parties or their families as a result of the criminal process carried out, are:
- Disagreement with the precautionary measure of provisional imprisonment or disagreement with the crimes for which they are accused;
- in the cases judged, disagreement with the sanctions requested and imposed,
- interest in providing evidence on conduct, student and work ties, as well as non-involvement with violent and vandalism events.
• Of the complaints filed with the Prosecutor's Office, 33 investigations have been concluded and responses offered to individuals, the rest remain under investigation. In all cases, based on the results of the investigations and the elements expressed by the persons, a solution has been given to the relevant legal aspects. Among the decisions adopted are the release of persons without charges, the modification of precautionary measures, the inclusion of their arguments to assess them in the specific criminal process, the legal guidance at each stage of the process, the termination of the processes and the realization of the corresponding lawsuits and resources.
For his part, Joselín Sánchez Hidalgo, magistrate of the People's Supreme Court and Director of Supervision and Attention to the Population, reported that:
• To date, 23 cases related to the aforementioned criminal acts have been filed in the popular municipal courts.
• 67 defendants have been tried in these trials. The Criminal Procedure Law provides the guarantees to be fulfilled by the courts in the development of judicial acts.
• It is reiterated that since these are processes under municipal courts, whose sanctioning framework is up to one year of deprivation of liberty, the decision to appear at the oral trial with a lawyer corresponds to the accused himself, taking into account what is stipulated in article 368 of the Criminal Procedure Law, which establishes that the court will admit the participation of the defender if the accused attends said act with him/her. For this appointment, all possibilities were offered; in fact, 23 of them were represented by lawyers, as per their own decision.
• On the courts, one was acquitted and 45 established an appeal, claiming as the most repeated causes the disagreement with the sanction imposed, and their consideration that their conduct was not constitutive of a crime. Of these, 42 have appointed lawyers to represent them in this act.
• The appeals filed by 32 of those sanctioned have been resolved, and in 11 cases they have been declared valid, which is why the originally imposed sanction was modified. The courts took into account, among other aspects, the degree of demonstrated participation, the background and personal characteristics, and the youth of some of them. In these cases, subsidiary sanctions (alternatives) to the custodial sentence, combined with fines, have been imposed for the most part.
• To 27 individuals who were previously serving subsidiary sanctions to the custodial (controlled freedom), or who were on probation at the time of their participation in the disturbances, such measures were revoked, given the violation of the obligations they had, imposed by law.
• Sixty-one habeas corpus have also been filed, and 59 of them have been resolved, all of which are declared non-relevant, as the absence of violations of legal provisions in the deprivation of liberty, has been verified.
• In Cuba, no person under 16 years of age has been criminally sanctioned by the courts.
Permanent Mission of Cuba