The Cuban content creator Anna Sofía Benítez Silvente, known on social media as Anna Bensi, was formally charged this Wednesday and was placed under a precautionary measure of house arrest.
The young woman was accused as a co-author of the alleged crime of “acts against personal and family privacy, one's own image and voice, another person's identity and their data,” her sister, Elmis Rivero Silvente, told the independent media CubaNet.
The young woman was subjected to the same criminal proceedings opened against her mother, Caridad Silvente Laffita, who was also charged with the same offense.
According to the published information, Bensi was summoned to appear at 2:00 PM at unit 27 of the Revolutionary National Police in Alamar, Havana.
The day before, the influencer had explained in a Facebook video that the summons was delivered to a family member and that she was formally required to appear to testify regarding the accusation made against her mother.
However, she herself assured that this was just a "little white lie" and insisted that the real reason was known publicly.
According to her sister's account, the decision to impose house arrest on Anna Bensi places her in the same legal situation as her mother, who had already been summoned on March 11 and interrogated by several State Security officials.
In telephone statements made by the mother to CubaNet, that meeting on March 11 was "horrible," and she reported that during the interrogation, the agents threatened her with a sentence of up to five years in prison, in addition to questioning her for allowing her daughter to make complaints on social media.
The origin of an accusation
The accusation against the mother and daughter arises from the filming and subsequent sharing on social media of a video in which two men dressed in civilian clothes are seen delivering an official summons to the mother of the young woman, Caridad Silvente.
Authorities claim that one of those men, identified as Yoel Leodán Rabaza Ramos, a subofficer of the Ministry of the Interior, felt threatened after his identity was revealed.
The account provided by the family is that the mother recorded the video and that Anna Bensi was the one who posted it on social media, which is why both were charged as co-authors of the same alleged crime.
The criminal classification invoked by the authorities corresponds to Article 393 of the Cuban Penal Code. Both Bensi and his mother could face sentences ranging from two to five years of imprisonment if the process continues and concludes with a conviction.
Judicial opacity
The case also includes a legal debate regarding the very validity of the procedure. Caridad Silvente's lawyer, Roberto Ortega Ortiz, submitted a document to the Prosecutor's Office requesting the dismissal of the complaint.
In that document, cited by CubaNet, the lawyer argues that Article 394.1 of the Penal Code establishes that this type of crime, like defamation and slander, can only be pursued through a complaint by the offended person and not by denunciation. Therefore, in his opinion, the case should never have been filed in the manner it was.
The same document also argues that there is insufficient evidence to support the case.
According to the lawyer's argument, the subjective elements of the alleged crime under investigation have not been presented, and since it involves a legal figure that requires a complaint, the burden of proof rests solely on the person who is presumably aggrieved.
In the defense's view, those requirements are being violated "in a flagrant manner" by the police investigation.
Anna Bensi herself had publicly anticipated that she was expecting a summons. In a video, she stated that the method used by State Security agents to take her to the police station had been the case opened against her mother.
Her interpretation of the case is that the authorities use that procedure as a means to pressure her regarding her reports on social media.
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