Violence continues to gain ground in Cuba. The Island's justice system has just sentenced the murderer of a peasant from Guisa (Granma), who was tortured, hanged and burned in April 2023, to 28 years in prison. Of the four people who participated in the crime, only one has been imprisoned. prison, according toCyberCuba the young man whom the Police considered the main suspect in the case, Y. B., who saw the victim two hours before he disappeared.
"I saw him for the last time on April 6. I left him food for my birthday," he says from Mexico. He regrets that the judge accepted the version that the victim was tortured after his death, so it could not have hurt him that his lip, an ear had been cut off, or that he had been burned.
The body of Elio Suárez Martínez, 52, was found on April 28, 2023 and buried that same day. He was hidden in the farm he had in the Sierra Maestra. Under the charred remains there was a knob that contained remains of a product used to immobilize animals, with which the victim was paralyzed.
According to Y.B.'s version of events, the murdered farmer was his neighbor and he was attacked by four other neighbors between 25 and 28 years old to rob him. Among them he identifies Daniel M. M., 27 years old, his brother and Wilbert V. They were all tried on December 7, 2023. The sentence was issued a month ago.
"They kept him alive for 16 days injected with something so that he would lose his mobility. They cut off his upper lip, an ear, his tongue..." and they took everything from him: money, clothes, food, animals, telephone and even his supply book.
"They hanged him with his own belt and a barbed wire." That wasn't enough for them and "they beat the hell out of him," he wrote in his first contact withCyberCuba.
Shortly after, the four people who participated in the crime were arrested. One of them, who was released, had Elio Suárez Martínez's belongings found in his house, but only the one who confessed that he had hanged him was sent to prison. This person is the one who has been sentenced to 28 years in prison. The rest remain free because although they admit that they tortured him, those tortures would have occurred after the peasant died so, according to the judge, "it did not hurt him."
"You can't live in that country anymore. For what he fought so hard, they murdered him," says Y.B., who assures that he was involved in the investigation as he was the main suspect. Shortly after, four months after the crime, he left Cuba and is now in Mexico, waiting to cross into the United States.
The conflict between Elio Martínez and his murderers began because he had a lot of land and his torturers lived one and four kilometers from his house, but they kept their animals on Elio's lands. He asked them to pick them up because he was going to plant pumpkins and his murderers didn't like it.
Elio Martínez was the father of two daughters, one living in Guisa and the other in Media Luna. He was the sole breadwinner in a family with several elderly people suffering from dementia and serious illnesses. They are all in the care of a sister, who also has a son in prison. "The father is crazy, the brother is crazy, he has a daughter with problems inside, a son in prison... I don't know how he can live," laments Y.B.
These types of crimes are not an isolated case in Cuba. Y.B. himself He assures that deaths occur continuously in the Sierra Maestra, but not with the cruelty used with Elio Martínez. In fact, the murderers themselves collaborated in the search for the body.
On the 12th of this month of March, a young man from Jicotea, Ciego de Ávila,He was murdered after being mistaken for another person.The deceased was the father of a little girl who was barely four months old. After realizing his mistake, the criminal turned himself in to the Police.
A day before, another man died after suffering several stab wounds inside his house, in the municipality of Regla, in Havana. The motive for the crime was once again robbery since the victim was exchanging dollars. They took his cell phone, cash and a watch. Before leaving the house, the murderers spread detergent on the floor to erase their footprints and make police investigation difficult. That same night they killed another young man, also in Regla, to take his phone.
On March 10, another young man died after receiving three stab wounds in the Chicharrones neighborhood, in Santiago de Cuba. Apparently, the murderer had had other encounters with the victim, who received stab wounds when he fell to the ground.
Murders due to robberies or account settlements are increasingly common in Cuba. That is one of the reasons why in Havana people avoid going out at night and the streets look deserted as soon as night falls.
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