Related videos:
The Cuban comedian Eddy Escobar sent a strong message to the ousted Minister of Economy Alejandro Gil Fernández, whose trial concluded this Thursday in Havana amid a climate of secrecy and without access to independent press.
“My advice to Alejandro Gil is simple and brutally honest: speak. Speak everything,” wrote Escobar on his Facebook account, referring to the legal proceedings that the former Cuban minister is facing for alleged charges of espionage, tax evasion, and influence peddling.
The comedian urged the former official to break his silence and recount “from Raúl to the last pawn in the chain,” reminding him of the fate of General Arnaldo Ochoa, who was executed after trusting Fidel Castro's promise that his case “was only to look good in the eyes of the public.”
"You know too much. And in a system built on secrets, silences, and forced loyalties, the one who breaks the pact is the one who changes history," wrote Escobar.
The comedian, known for his critical posts about Cuban reality, suggested that Gil could become "the remorseful villain who, by speaking out, showed the people the whole monster and not just its shadow."
The message was published just hours after the closure of the trial against the ousted minister was confirmed, held at the Tribunal de Marianao under strict surveillance and without transparency.
According to her sister, María Victoria Gil, the process was “held behind closed doors, with heavy security measures and without access even for immediate family members.”
Gil Fernández, one of the closest men to the leader Miguel Díaz-Canel and a former face of the so-called "monetary reform," is facing serious accusations that could cost him life imprisonment.
His fall from grace has been interpreted as an act of political purging within the Cuban power elite, rather than a genuine exercise of justice.
"In your hands lies the real possibility of opening the eyes of a people who have lived for decades amidst half-truths, empty promises, and inherited fears," Escobar added.
In a recent interview with the journalist from Univision, Javier Díaz, María Victoria Gil, a lawyer by profession and sister of the ousted minister, gave a hard and direct testimony, filled with anguish about the situation of the accused and the family.
María Victoria described from the outset the lack of information and obstacles to communication: "the trial is completely sealed off... I have no communication because my niece and nephew had their internet cut off and their WhatsApp blocked since yesterday."
The sister of the former minister did not hold back on adjectives to describe what she sees as a political persecution with personal undertones: "this is a typical case of brutal vindictiveness."
Gil recalled that her brother has been "detained for more than a year in a high-security prison" - a situation she recounts with horror and detail - and added: "he is suffering... degrading treatment... he has lost 50 pounds, he has no hair, he has alopecia areata caused by stress."
Although he acknowledges that "you get into that" when in power and that corruption is systemic, he defended the hypothesis that his brother was not an ordinary spy: "I really doubt... that my brother was capable of becoming a spy. What I do believe is that my brother wanted to change things... he became troublesome because he wanted to alter things within Cuba's economic structure."
Filed under: