Cuban regime denounces attack against its Embassy in Washington

On Sunday night, the Cuban regime denounced the carrying out ofan alleged attack against the headquarters of its Embassy in Washington.

This was reported in his account in X by the Cuban Foreign Minister,Bruno Rodriguez Grill, who attributed the incident to an individual who had thrown two Molotov cocktails at the building.

The head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX) indicated that no one had been injured in the incident.

“Today night, 9/24, the Cuban Embassy in the US was the target of a terrorist attack by an individual who threw 2 Molotov cocktails. There were no injuries to personnel. The details are being specified,” said Rodríguez Parrilla.

At the time of writing this note, there is no official statement from the United States authorities, nor has the Cuban regime released images of security cameras that have captured the alleged attack.

“It is the second violent attack against the diplomatic headquarters in Washington since April 2020. On that occasion, an individual fired an assault rifle at the headquarters,” said the foreign minister of the Cuban regime.

In a veiled allusion to the protection responsibilities of the host country of the diplomatic legation, Rodríguez Parrilla stated that “theAnti-Cuban groups turn to terrorism when they feel impunity, something that Cuba has repeatedly alerted US authorities about.”

According toCuban official press, “after the unfortunate incident occurred, the international community has already begun to denounce the incident and has expressed its solidarity with the Cuban people.”

However, the reactions on social networks of theCuban civil society They mostly show skepticism and disbelief towards the information offered by Havana, with many coming to the opinion that it could be a self-attack perpetrated by the regime itself to promote its political agenda in the face of the international community.

The attack would have been committed just when the delegation led by the rulerMiguel Diaz-Canel was leaving United States territory, after an intense week of events before theUnited Nations Organization (UN) and with regime sympathizers in New York: an agenda that provokedthe rejection of Cuban activists who demonstrated before the Permanent Mission of Cuba.

The attack of 2020

In late April 2020, a man was arrested aftershoot several times with an assault rifle at the Cuban Embassy in United States.

The shooting occurred at approximately 2:10 a.m. outside the Embassy, at 2600 and 16th Street NW, in the northwest of the city. The area police went to the scene when the first shots were heard and in a matter of minutes they arrested the suspect, according to the Washington DC Metropolitan Police report sent toCyberCuba.

Although in the preliminary information the authorities did not identify the suspect, the police statement indicated that the alleged aggressor isAlexander Alazo Baró, 42, resident of Aubrey, Texas.

"The subject was immediately arrested without additional incident and the weapon was recovered. The Secret Service proceeded to make the arrest and continues the investigation of the case," he toldCyberCubathe police spokespersonBrianna Jordan.

Alazo Baró fired 32 shots with an AK-47 rifle at the Cuban diplomatic headquarters before throwing the weapon at the entrance of the building. When agents from the Washington Metropolitan Police and the Secret Service proceeded to arrest him, he was wrapped in an American flag.

Two years later, in April 2022, the Cuban remained behind bars in the midst ofa lengthy judicial process in which his mental competence was debated to face the process against him and evaluate the plea agreement offered by the United States government.

The issue of Alazo Baró's mental evaluation was the subject of prolonged considerations and legal maneuvers by the prosecution and defense, and constituted the main obstacle to advancing the case towards a final solution.

The accusation against him implicated him in four crimes for discharging a firearm during an act of violence, attacking an official premises and intentionally damaging property belonging to or occupied by a foreign government in the United States. If convicted, he could receive a mandatory sentence of at least 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

The case file included video from the body cameras of police officers at the scene of the shooting and surveillance video from the embassy. The court strictly limited the use of the images and restricted the use of the videos to the parties in dispute.

The images of the shooting recorded from the Cuban embassy clearly show the details of the incident and the behavior of Alazo Baró for around 10 minutes before his arrest.

The federal judgeAmy Berman Jackson He even prohibited showing the images to other people or copying them for purposes other than the court process, and ordered that the public will not be allowed to identify witnesses, nor will the accused be able to reveal the content of the videos or duplicate it through photos or other media. .

In March 2020, a month before the attack, the Cuban was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, where he was diagnosed with a delusional disorder and prescribed medication. It was then that he proceeded to acquire the AK-47 rifle, which he kept with him as a "protection weapon" until the dawn of the assault.

Havana's reaction in 2020

The Cuban regimelaunched repeated criticism of the United States for the handling of the case and for not condemning the accused's action as a "terrorist act", as described by the current events he denounces.

Immediately, the case took on a political overtone amid the worsening of tensions between Havana and Washington during theDonald Trump administration.

As a result of the incident, Rodríguez Parrilla denounced Alazo's alleged links with a Christian church, political leaders and activists in South Florida who supposedly maintained a hostile stance towards the island's regime.

But the MINREX complaint only made references to some indirect relationships of Alazo through social networks, without presenting documentary evidence or testimonies of the assailant's connections with violent groups and Cuban-American personalities.