On Carromero's "Trial"

capitolhillcubans

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Despite the revelations below, the Spanish government signed a memorandum accepting the Castro regime's sham "trial" against Angel Carromero, the youth activist imprisoned for driving the car that crashed and killed Cuban pro-democracy leaders Oswaldo Paya and Harold Cepero.

(Paya's family -- and Carromero himself before being taken into custody -- holds that the car was rammed by another vehicle, presumably of secret police officials that had been following them for hours.)

This might seem like a good short-term strategy to ingratiate the Castro regime, but has serious long-term consequences that will endanger other Spaniards on the island.

From an interview by Spain's ABC newspaper with Carromero's lawyer:

"In an interview published by ABC Spain, José María Viñals Camallonga reveals that neither he nor the Cuban lawyers assigned to Angel Carromero were given access to the evidence presented in court by the prosecution, not even the car involved in the "accident," or the the roadway itself. In addition, neither he nor the Cuban defense lawyers were allowed to carry out their own investigations.

In other words, the prosecution was totally in control of the trial, and the impossible task of the defense team was to disprove the prosecution's charges without access to any evidence or witnesses. When asked by ABC whether Carromero had received a fair trial, Viñals Camallonga replied that the trial adhered scrupulously to Cuban law, but was grossly unfair by the standards commonly accepted in Spain and the European Union."

Translation courtesy of Babalu Blog.