Spain won’t pardon Carromero over Payá’s death

The Spanish government, through the Ministry of Justice and the Council of Ministers, will not pardon Ángel Carromero, the Popular Party politician who drove the car that crashed in Granma, Cuba, on July 22, 2012, killing his Cuban passengers, opposition activists Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero.

(For background, click here and here.)

The Council of Ministers on Friday (July 11) turned down Carromero’s plea at the recommendation of Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz Gallardón.

Carromero, secretary general of the Popular Party’s youth organization, New Generations, was found guilty of imprudent homicide (involuntary manslaughter) by the People’s Provincial Tribunal of Granma province on Oct. 12, 2012, and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment.

Two months later, he was repatriated to Spain by virtue of a 1998 agreement between Spain and Cuba. There, he is serving his sentence at large but under electronic monitoring.

He has served one quarter of that sentence, which will be fully served on July 21, 2016. In his bid for a pardon, he had said he wanted a United Nations investigation of the accident that led to the death of the two Cubans.

The 1998 agreement states that “each party may grant a pardon, amnesty and the commutation of the penalty according to its Constitution or other applicable legal provisions, but a review of the sentence is only up to the State” that imposed it, i.e., Cuba.