Fined one thousand pesos after complaining about three murders in a year in Aguacate (Santiago de Cuba)

The police in Palma Soriano were asking for a bail of 100,000 pesos after holding him in detention for a week, but following the repercussions of the case in CiberCuba, they backtracked.

Cedida © Luis Ángel Ríos Cala
GrantedPhoto © Luis Ángel Ríos Cala

Luis Ángel Ríos Cala (March 28, 1978), cousin of Jorge Luis Heredia Cala, who was murdered last March after discovering a marijuana plantation near the town of Aguacate, in Palma Soriano, Santiago de Cuba, has been exempted from paying the 100,000 pesos bail that the police had requested.

They detained him for a week at the Palma Soriano Police Station for questioning, after he loudly complained at a funeral and said that if there were justice in his town, there wouldn't have been three violent murders in less than a year.

The fact is that the bail of 100,000 pesos ultimately became a fine of 1,000 pesos, and Luis Ángel Ríos Cala is now back on the street. After the case was published in CiberCuba, it had a significant impact in the area despite the censorship. The family of the detainee went to the provincial authorities, and they voided the application of the bail. The detainee went on a hunger strike during his arrest, refusing to eat, according to sources close to him.

Luis Ángel Ríos Cala erupted at the funeral of his neighbor Arianni Céspedes, who was murdered on Saturday, September 14, by her ex-partner in front of two children aged 5 and 6, who are the children of a neighbor. At the time of the crime, the minors were gathering almonds at the scene and witnessed how the murderer inflicted a fatal stab wound on his victim, piercing a lung.

It was in that context of community shock, because Arianni Céspedes was very beloved in the town, that Luis Ángel Ríos Cala lamented that in less than a year Aguacate had faced three murders: that of Dorka Velázquez, a 15-year-old girl, who was slain in November 2023 by a rapist; that of his cousin, Jorge Luis Heredia Cala, murdered after discovering a marijuana field in the vicinity of Aguacate; and that of Arianni Céspedes at the hands of her ex-husband.

The three murders took place between November 2023 and September 2024, and in the case of Jorge Luis Heredia Cala, the cousin of the detained, the murderer is walking free in the town. The Public Prosecutor's Office released him after five months of preventive detention, believing his version that he had accidentally killed Jorge Luis Heredia Cala while throwing a stone at an owl in a dark alley in the town.

The authorities of Aguacate released Yacel Segura, alias Tatico, despite the fact that the entire town, including Julián, the Sector chief, knows that Jorge Luis Heredia Cala was killed after mentioning that he had found a farm planted with marijuana.

The authorities of Aguacate have shown a quickness in the arrest of Luis Ángel Ríos Cala that they have not had when it comes to investigating the ownership of the marijuana field and the true reasons behind the murder of Jorgito Heredia Cala. In the town, two different sources have told CiberCuba that there has been bribery and corruption in this case. Neither of them has provided evidence. They have commented on the suspicion that Tatico's father-in-law, Mr. Julio A. Cuevas Pacheco, may have paid to silence the witnesses who saw Tatico with "Hombre" kill Jorgito Heredia. Today, no one knows anything or remembers anything.

What do you think?

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Tania Costa

(La Habana, 1973) lives in Spain. She has directed the Spanish newspaper El Faro de Melilla and FaroTV Melilla. She was the head of the Murcia edition of 20 minutos and communication advisor to the Vice Presidency of the Government of Murcia (Spain).


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