Cuban judge has first asylum hearing in the United States.

The judge from Villa Clara, Melody González Pedraza, attended her first asylum hearing in the United States this Wednesday, after arriving in the country with humanitarian parole and being denied entry by authorities in Tampa.

The jurist - involved in the conviction of four young Cubans for "assault" - requested political asylum after arriving in Tampa with a travel permit and humanitarian parole. She is currently detained in Broward awaiting a court sentence, said lawyer Santiago Alpízar to Martí Noticias.

"He has been scheduled for a master hearing on July 31st at 1:00 pm. There, he will have to show Judge Barry S. Chait what merits he has to obtain political asylum, which in my opinion, he does not have," declared Alpízar, director of the NGO Cuba Demanda.

When the authorities in Tampa denied her entry into the country, the woman was forced to seek political asylum.

According to the aforementioned news portal, González Pedraza signed prison sentences against four young individuals under 30 years of age who on November 18, 2022, threw Molotov cocktails at the homes of police chiefs and government officials in the municipality of Encrucijada.

It was a trial manipulated by State Security similar to the processes of the July 11 protesters and was based on statements from regime agents, without guarantees for due process, the publication said.

Finally, the judge sentenced Andy Gabriel González Fuentes, Eddy Daniel Rodríguez Pérez, and Luis Ernesto Medina Pedraza to four years in prison, while a fourth accused, Adain Barreiro Pérez, was sentenced to three years in prison. They were all convicted of the crime of assault.

The mothers of the prisoners, from Cuba, have expressed their discontent with the parole being granted, pointing out the injustices committed by the judge.

While some accomplices of the Cuban regime, such as the nieces of Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz, have benefited from humanitarian parole, constant complaints from the Cuban exile have prevented others from taking advantage of this migratory benefit to settle in the United States.

Currently, a prosecutor from Camagüey is applying for a visa to emigrate to the United States through the CBP One application, after having been part of the repressive machinery of the Cuban regime that imprisoned over a thousand peaceful protesters from July 11, 2021 (11J).

This is about Rosabel Roca Sampedro, who was a prosecutor at the Municipal Court of Camagüey before emigrating to Mexico with her daughter, a country from which she is seeking entry to the United States, as Martí Noticias was able to confirm.