Adel de la Torre Hernandez, one of the rescuers who participated in the evacuation of survivors after theexplosion at the Saratoga Hotel, in Havana, is fulfillingseven years in prison for demonstrating on 11J.
The young man, 26 years old and a health worker, was arrested on July 11, 2021 in the afternoon, near the Virgen del Camino, in the capital municipality of San Miguel del Padrón, and taken to the detention center " Young people of Cotorro".
He remained there for 10 days, seven of them in forced disappearance, until he was transferred to another prison, "Jóvenes de Occidente", where he was infected with COVID. Towards the end of August or beginning of September 2021, he was released on bail until the day of the trial, which took place on September 2 of this year, according to statements from family members.
While in custody, he was savagely beaten by authorities. and accused of the crimes of attack, contempt and instigation to commit a crime. Since then, he has been under psychiatric treatment at home and in hospitals in the capital.
"He wanted to commit suicide several times because he says that they hit him many times to make him say that he did do something that he did not commit.", said toCyberCuba Anayl Hernández Collado, mother of the young man, and alleged that her son has been a psychiatry patient since adolescence.
On October 17, his bail was revoked and he is now in the Valle Grande prison.
Mental health, a problem in the family
The also 9/11 protesterRolando Remedios, whose photo being suffocated by the police went around the world and became a symbol of repression in Cuba, was Adel's cellmate during the first 10 days of his detention and expressed his concern for the paramedic's health condition.
"He suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and has been hospitalized several times. He was on the street, but they already imprisoned him without being able to appeal", Remedios said toCyberCuba and confessed to feeling upset by his friend's situation.
It was during the last year of his Middle Technician in Accounting when Adel debuted with the illness that, at that time, prevented him from discussing his thesis."He didn't graduate because he didn't want to leave the house, he was in crisis. It was there that I detected that my son inherited paranoid schizophrenia"Anayl told this news site.
The young man does not have the capacity to deal with this situation, his mental health does not allow it, say Anayl and Rolando. The medical terms, according to the diagnosis of psychiatrist Reynol A. Moreno Puebla dated October 6, 2021, are "anxiety disorder" and "schizoaffective disorder." The last time he was admitted was in April, at the Calixto García hospital, after a new suicide attempt.
"He tried to hang me. I realized because he was locked in the room, I called him to come eat and he didn't want to. When I pushed the door, he was readygoing to hang himself..."said the mother with a broken voice.
Adel's paternal grandfather and uncle died by hanging. In fact, several relatives in the family suffer from psychiatric illnesses, including his brother and his late father, whose loss last December, due to cerebral ischemia, he still has not overcome.
In the Valle Grande prison, where he is currently being held, the paramedic is part of “the group of suicides” because there he also tried to take his own life, prison authorities informed the mother this Monday."That has me very worried and very upset", says the lady, rightly.
After 9/11
During the first seven days that followed the historic anti-government protests, Adel was missing and without legal assistance. Anayl was one of the hundreds of mothers who toured police units and hospitals in search of news, without anyone knowing how to give her information about the whereabouts of her son.
In the style of the worst dictatorships on the continent, the response was invariably the same:"Your son is not here". Desperate, the mother filed a search request at Regla police station 24 and on July 18 received a call from State Security notifying where the young man was detained. The record of the complaint that was delivered to him is illegible.
Meanwhile, the young man was beaten and subjected to cruel and degrading treatment. According to several testimonies, the head of the San Miguel sector,Luis Ángel Manso Iglesias, "broke his rib" and coerced him to sign a guilty plea with elements that would later come to light in Preparatory Phase File (EFP) No. 755.
In the EFP, Adel is not a paramedic, but rather an "unemployed" person with a ninth grade education. The studies he completed and the certifications that qualify him as a worker in the emergency system have no place in the antisocial profile created by State Security in collusion with the Attorney General's Office and the National Revolutionary Police.
His trial, scheduled for August 1 of this year, was postponed to September 2 "due to a depression crisis," adds Justicia 11J. Initially, prosecutor Vivian Pérez Pérez asked for 10 years of deprivation of liberty as a joint sanction.
The only prosecution witness who had supposedly identified him, Lieutenant Ivandris Álvarez Aguilar, never showed up to testify at the trial. However, the court sentenced the paramedic to seven years of deprivation of liberty because, according to the EFP, the young man "attacked the PNR officers with stones... without affecting any of them" and shouted "Police Singaos" and "Díaz -Canel Singao", while "inciting" people to join the march.
Anayl denies this version and assures that her son went out to the street that day to look for her, worried, and on the way home he stood on the street watching the demonstration go by, at which point he was violently detained.
A complex situation
Almost a year after his release, they locked him up again on October 17 without allowing him to wait at home for the appeal process, in what constitutes another violation of due process. Nor did the authorities notice how many lives the young man helped save, especially in the vicinity of the Saratoga Hotel, which became one of the most heartfelt and deadly tragedies that have occurred in Cuba in recent times.
The attitude of the government is not surprising, as it has not taken into account the complex family situation of the rescuer and the multiple illnesses that his mother has. Anayl is diabetic, hypertensive and hypothyroid. He has a motor disability and has suffered two cerebrovascular infarctions, one in 2016 and another in April of this year while he was standing in line to buy food.
"He repeated to me about the chicken's tail. I have the papers here that say that I cannot stand in lines for anything. I started to convulse and have a type of epilepsy", remember.
Recently, she was diagnosed with a colon tumor that could not be treated. Added to the lack of medicines and resources for the surgical procedure is the fear of entering an operating room and not leaving alive, which is why, in a Solomonic decision, he has opted for the slow and painful death of cancer before than leaving your child in these conditions.
Both suffer from incurable and complex illnesses and have no support other than what they give each other. When one relapses, the other is there to help him get up. The two of them live alone in an impoverished neighborhood of Havana with very poor resources. Facing the difficult economic situation, with serious health problems, is already a titanic task.
On top of everything, prison and the imminent danger of death in both cases changes everything, although perhaps the apathy and indifference of the Cuban authorities, in their crusade against individual freedoms, is not enough to show an iota of humanity. .
Political prisoner and hero of the Saratoga Hotel explosion
On May 8, Adel received a call from the Integrated Medical Emergency System (SIUM) to join the rescue efforts after the explosion at the emblematic Saratoga Hotel.
In a message sent to a friend on WhatsApp, to whomCyberCuba had access, he told him that, once there, the rescuers were prohibited from taking photographs of the accident.
"They sent him to cover and he immediately came out to help. He is very willing, when he is well, and intelligent. That day at Saratoga he called me and I was at the front supporting everyone who was pulling out of the rubble", remembers the mother.
Two days before, during the transfer of manufactured gas to the hotel from a tanker, something failed and the facility was blown to pieces. The scene was Dantesque.The incident left 47 dead, including four minors and a pregnant woman, in addition to 52 injured, according to the official MINSAP report.
"It was horrible and very sad for so many losses"laments Anayl who, at the same time, is proud to think that her son was involved in the evacuation of survivors and that thanks to his actions many lives were saved. He himself pulled them out of the rubble.
Therefore, that day and the next, "He arrived with his shirt full of blood" to home. As a result, he suffered another depressive crisis. "I was very sad about the tragedy", adds the mother.
In fact, all of Cuba plunged into a national mourning decreed on May 12 by President Miguel Díaz-Canel in a tweet where he also conveyed his gratitude to "firefighters, rescuers, health personnel, to the people of Cuba."
But Adel, one of those rescuers, is behind bars today, and will be for the next seven years, while those responsible for the Saratoga bombing enjoy total impunity. The young man's arrest occurred at the Arroyo Naranjo Municipal Court, the day he went to collect the verdict. When he arrived, a police car was waiting for him, and they took him away.
"They took him away in handcuffs, like a criminal, a murderer. They didn't let me get close to the police car, or give him a kiss," said the distressed mother.
What do you think?
SEE COMMENTS (3)Filed in: