Released volleyball player will return to Cuba

HAVANA — Dariel Albo Miranda will return to Cuba “in the next few hours,” the Cuban Volleyball Federation announced Saturday (Sept. 3).

Albo is one of six members of the island’s national volleyball team who were arrested by the Finnish authorities under a charge of rape made by a citizen of that country whose name has been kept secret, as well as the trial and its proceedings. To learn what happened, the world will have to wait 60 years, according to the case’s prosecutor, Leena Kolvuniemi; the trial documents were sealed at the plaintiff’s request.

On Aug. 31, Albo was released and has abstained so far from making any statement to the Finnish media.

Albo’s defense attorney, Pirkka Lappalainen, said that he was very satisfied by the three-judge panel’s decision, Progreso Semanal reported on Aug. 31.

About the fate of the five remaining defendants — Osmany Uriarte Mestre, Luis Sosa Sierra, Rolando Cepeda Abreu, Ricardo Calvo Manzano, and Abrahan Alfonso Gavilán — we’ll have to wait until Sept. 20, when the District Court at Tampere will issue its verdict.

The silence about the events, their characteristics, the secrecy demanded by the plaintiff, and the delicacy with which the Cuban Embassy in Finland and the Cuban authorities have handled the case indicate that, at least at the start, the media and news agencies will have no access to Dariel Albo. Besides, given that the indictment and the trial proceedings will be sealed until 2076, it seems practically impossible to learn anything about what happened.

[Photo at top of Cuban volleyball players players Ricardo Calvo Manzano (3), Abrahan Alfonso Gavilán (12) and Dariel Albo Miranda (15).]

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