After the sentence, what?
By Manuel Alberto Ramy
HAVANA – Ángel Carromero Barrios has been sentenced by the Provincial Tribunal of Granma to four years’ imprisonment for imprudent homicide. Initially, the state prosecutors had asked for seven years.
This is the first interesting element. According to sources who are technically reliable, a sentence of fewer than five years would enable Carromero to travel to Spain under one of the two variants contemplated by Cuba’s Criminal Code, which allows the Council of Ministers to expel him from the country, or – through the application of bilateral accords for cases of this nature – serve his sentence in the country of which he is a citizen.
On this particular issue, both parties must come to an agreement.
The punishment does not surprise me. It keeps open the possibilities of a solution within the law. The decision’s antecedents have two facets.
First: Carromero’s defense, handled by Cuban lawyer Dorisbel Rojas, was intelligent and effective. So much so, that, when the trial ended on Oct. 5, Spain’s Consul General in Cuba, Tomás Rodríguez Pantoja, told the media: “The trial has been procedurally correct […] From Spain’s point of view, at least, there are reasons to be optimistic. I am practically certain that there will be a reduction in the sentence that, I believe, will be considerable, in view of what has been discussed.” Emphasis is mine.
Obviously, the three-year reduction of the initial petition meets the expectations of the Spanish consul. And I repeat what I wrote once before: at no time was the political objective of the trip to Cuba – confirmed by the statements of Swedish activist Jens Aron Modig and Carromero’s and Modig’s trip to Cuba’s interior – part of the judicial process.
Second: The political aspect was discussed through diplomatic channels that included the top level of both chancelleries, when the foreign ministers of Cuba and Spain spoke in New York City about the topic.
It would not be untoward to think that, prior to those encounters, other meetings were held at ambassadorial level. It is no happenstance that in Spain, barely one week after the tragic accident, whose political value Cuba minimized, the topic of Carromero and its public discussion became the patrimony of personalities authorized by the Spanish Foreign Ministry, on a basis of discretion. All this was consistent with the defendant’s request that the accident not be politicized.
The political objective of the trip, the projects and their possible backers in Spain – all of them linked to the Popular Party and the Christian Democratic International – may have been brought into the open during the investigation and Carromero’s interrogations, but not in the trial, I repeat. If that had happened, we’d possibly be facing issues that are politically sensitive and very hot, given the circumstances the Spanish people are going through at present.
Am I pulling this card out of my sleeve? I don’t think so. Didn’t Modig, who traveled in the car with Carromero, confess hours before returning to his homeland that both men brough 4,000 euros for the Liberation Christian Movement (MLC) and that he was willing to help activate a youth wing of that movement? What more might he have confessed to the authorities and how much more might Carromero have contributed?
In my opinion, and without slighting the judicial process, the political aspect has been a determining factor in this case: it lowered the public level of the issue, reduced the judicial process to a traffic accident, and will possibly define Carromero’s transfer to Spain, within the legal standards, after a prudent wait.
The solution does not harm Spain’s dignity and would not imply, in my opinion, a change in Spain’s critical stance toward the Cuban government – although it is likely that it means no interference in Cuba’s internal affairs.
