The Provincial People's Court of Santiago de Cuba sentenced three men to life imprisonment for the murder of a security guard and the attempted murder of another in the municipality of Contramaestre, as reported by the Sierra Maestra newspaper following the trial held on October 25 in the Second Criminal Chamber of the court.
The individuals sentenced to life imprisonment are Roberto Acosta Estrada, Erisdel García Zulueta, and Rosendo Ramón Guevara González, found guilty of the crimes of completed murder and attempted murder.
The events occurred on the night of August 4, 2025, at the UBPC Fidel Domenech Rizo, located in Baire, when the attackers broke into the cooperative with the intention of stealing sheep.
During the assault, the attackers assaulted two guards with a knife: one of them died, while the other was in such critical condition that, according to the official description from MININT, it was believed he had also passed away.
The assailants fled with 13 sheep and other items stolen from the facility. The stolen animals had already been sacrificed, and their meat distributed to food and entertainment establishments in the municipality before authorities took action.
The case was solved in less than 24 hours. The MININT began the investigations in the early hours of August 5, 2025, and, with the help of local residents, arrested six men between the ages of 33 and 43 linked to the crime the following day.
In addition to the three life sentences, the court imposed two years of imprisonment on Alexander Bello Macías and Wilfredo Álvarez Macías for the crime of receiving stolen goods, having acquired animals that were obtained through theft.
The ruling also included additional penalties and compensation payments to the affected parties. Both the convicted individuals and the prosecution retain the right to appeal to the Supreme People's Court.
The sentences handed down are the most severe publicly recorded in the series of crimes against guards that has plagued the eastern province since mid-2024. In January 2026, the same court had sentenced four individuals to between 28 and 30 years in prison for the murder of another guard in Nuevo Mundo, Dos Caminos.
The pattern repeats itself: individuals attack guards at agricultural cooperatives and other establishments to steal animals or other goods, and in multiple cases, they murder them or leave them seriously injured. The scarcity of food and the black market for meat, direct consequences of the economic crisis that Cuba has been experiencing after decades of dictatorship, have been identified as factors driving this type of crime.
The current Cuban Penal Code, approved in 2022, establishes penalties of 20 to 30 years of imprisonment, life imprisonment, or the death penalty for the crime of murder with aggravating circumstances. The publication that reported the ruling described it as "an exemplary trial in response to acts of extreme violence."
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