The family of Luis Guillermo Céspedes Fonseca, a 37-year-old man detained by the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) in Güines, in the province of Mayabeque, claims that he died in the custody of the Cuban state.
The complaint was shared on social media at the family's request by activist Irma Lidia Broek, credited to Yois Ramos, the victim's sister, who recounted the events in the first person.
According to the testimony, the events took place on June 11, under circumstances that the family describes as a "deliberate crime," which the authorities refuse to clarify.
According to the account published by the activist, the authorities contacted the family to inform them that Luis Guillermo had supposedly "hanged himself with a blanket" inside the cell. The family categorically rejects that version.
" My brother did not take his own life; my brother was beaten to death. An anonymous photograph that reached us reveals the violence on his body, and today we do not even know for certain the exact location in the cemetery where he was buried," Ramos denounced.
The authorities not only denied explanations: they also forbade the family members from seeing the body and prevented them from taking photographs.
An additional cruelty was added to this: the family resides in Contramaestre, a municipality in Santiago de Cuba, and received only 24 hours to travel to Güines, making it practically impossible to arrive on time. The body was buried in solitude, without the mother being able to bid farewell to her son.
They denied a desperate mother the sacred human right to say a final goodbye to her son, wrote the deceased's sister.
Since June 11, the authorities in Contramaestre have maintained absolute silence regarding the case. The family demands a genuine and transparent investigation and warns that its members in Cuba are in danger for speaking out.
The pattern described by this family is not new. Cases like that of Víctor Ángel Rodríguez Martí, who died in the Second Unit of the PNR in Santiago de Cuba in June 2025, or that of Manuel de Jesús Guillén Esplugas, a prisoner from the 11J who died in the Combinado del Este on November 30, 2024, present the same elements: official version of suicide, family reports of beating, refusal to show the body, and institutional silence.
In the case of Guillén Esplugas, the Secretary General of the OAS publicly denounced the death and held the Cuban state accountable for his custody.
The human rights organization Cubalex reported at least 30 deaths in custody in Cuba during the first half of 2026, including four political prisoners, and warns that this figure is likely an underreporting due to the state's secrecy.
Between January 2022 and January 2024, the same organization had documented 56 deaths in custody in Cuba, with causes including denial of medical care, institutional violence, and suicides whose circumstances families consistently question.
"The incident occurred on June 11, and since then, the authorities in Contramaestre have remained completely silent. We demand a genuine and transparent investigation," concluded Yois Ramos in his complaint.
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