Three days after the discovery of the body of the 20-year-old Cuban woman, Lianet Núñez Pérez, in a trash container in Old Havana, the mystery surrounding the circumstances and authorship of her murder remains.
Although reports have indicated that the victim's boyfriend was arrested in connection with the crime, journalist Wilfredo Cancio Isla clarified this Monday—citing the testimony of sources close to the deceased—that the boyfriend has not been arrested, but only interviewed by the authorities.
On the morning of August 23, the body of Lianet was found, mutilated, just three blocks from the home she shared with her partner, Ariel Rodríguez, 19 years old.
The body had both legs amputated at the knees.
Investigations would have confirmed that she died from asphyxiation due to strangulation, around 10 p.m. on Thursday.
The girl had been stripped of bracelets and other accessories she was wearing, and she only kept a ring that her boyfriend had given her.
His phone, which has not appeared, registered connection until 9 p.m. on Thursday.
When the first alert was issued for his disappearance, it was reported that his trace had been lost in the park of Monte and Belascoaín, in Centro Habana.
However, according to the aforementioned communicator, "other testimonies from relatives in Santiago de las Vegas indicate that the boyfriend said he had dropped her off at 6 p.m. [on Thursday] and that he put her in a car headed to Santiago de las Vegas."
Shortly after noon on Friday, Ariel Rodríguez called the relatives in Santiago de las Vegas to find out if Lianet was with them. The answer was negative.
Yoanis Pérez, mother of Lianet, went to the police station in Old Havana that was in charge of the case regarding the discovery of a mutilated body, and there she was able to confirm that the corpse held in Forensic Medicine was that of her daughter.
Lianet's body was laid out for a few hours at the funeral home in Santiago de las Vegas and was subsequently cremated. On Saturday morning, a family funeral was held at her grandparents' house.
Lianet's father, who has been living in the United States for years, could not travel to Havana for his daughter's funeral.
Lianet was born and raised in Santiago de las Vegas, in the Havana municipality of Boyeros. She mostly lived in her grandparents' house in the Villanueva neighborhood, but for over a year she had been residing in Old Havana with Ariel Rodríguez, who is a nursing graduate.
Feminist platforms qualified this same Monday the case as feminicide, but still keeping in suspense who committed the crime.
"Although it is not yet possible to identify who attacked her, this crime qualifies as femicide due to elements such as disappearance, deposition of the body in a public space, and extreme violence," jointly stated the Gender Observatory Alas Tensas (OGAT) and the platform YoSíTeCreo en Cuba.
"We ask the public to show the utmost consideration towards that family, to avoid sharing photos of the crime scene or making judgments about an unimaginable situation that no one is prepared for. It is regrettable that in the face of these events, there are extremes of morbid curiosity or silence from the press, and not critical reporting," they pointed out.
Both platforms expressed "rejection of the police and authorities, who despite the numerous reported disappearances and the proven effectiveness of an early alert, continue with the criminal protocol of not accepting immediate reports of disappearances, nor do they establish an institutional alert that reaches every mobile phone and every media outlet."
As of the closing of this note, the silence of official sources regarding the case persists, which unfortunately is not the first of its kind this summer.
In recent days, the mentioned platforms verified the femicide of Linda Nay Flores Vargas, a 34-year-old woman who was also murdered and thrown into a garbage tank in Havana. In that case, it was confirmed that her partner was the one who committed the crime.
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