A reporter from 14ymedio noted the deployment of State Security and the absence of the international press.
14ymedio, Havana/Madrid, November 26, 2025 — Not only behind closed doors but also without advance public announcement, the second trial of the former minister of economy and planning, Alejandro Gil Fernández, indicted two weeks ago for espionage, took place in total secrecy. The hearing, in which he is being tried for more than a dozen crimes -including embezzlement, tax evasion, influence trafficking and money laundering- began at 9:30 am at the same place, the People’s Civil and Family Court of Marianao, in Havana.
The surroundings of the building were guarded from the beginning, although with a smaller operation than on the first day of the trial, when streets and nearby shops were closed. This time there was no press stationed outside the courthouse, although a man could be seen with a camera hanging from his neck.
According to a source close to the case who requests anonymity, the two children of the former minister, Alejandro and Laura María Gil González, were forced to sign a confidentiality clause at the hearing on Wednesday. At the first trial, only his son was allowed to enter. His daughter had requested a “public and open” trial for her father on social networks and in various publications.
The regime reported the first trial less than 24 hours in advance, through a statement read on state television, but they did not even announce it this time. The official media are busy today with Fidel Castro, as yesterday marks nine years since his death.
A 14ymedio source said that the case for which Gil Fernández is being tried this Wednesday has 20 more defendants, including “a deputy of the National Assembly of People’s Power and a secretary of the Communist Party.” The Public Prosecutor’s Office, according to this source, asked for 30 years for the former minister and “sentences of at least 15 years for the others.”
No decision from the first trial has been handed down so far. According to the sister of the former minister, María Victoria Gil Fernández, corroborated by this newspaper’s source, Gil’s attorney, Abel Solá López, made a “brilliant” defense.
In an interview granted four days ago to the Cuban journalist resident in Miami Mario J. Pentón, María Victoria (Vicky) Gil said that her brother is accused of having spied for the US, and that every case against the former minister was instigated by Manuel Marrero, Prime Minister and a colonel in the Army. It was a plot orchestrated by the military sector of the regime, whose economic interests were affected by the Ordering Task, the process of monetary and exchange unification that began on January 1, 2021, managed by Gil Fernández.
It was Marrero, said the former presenter of De la Gran Escena, having been informed by a “very reliable” source whom she could not name, who called Alejandro Gil Fernández on February 1, 2024, to tell him that his work as Minister of Economy and Planning had not given “the expected fruits” and that he would be replaced the next day.
When the former official appeared before the prime minister to hand over his portfolio, he found that two State Security agents were there with Marrero, who told him that he was “under investigation.” It was then that he was arrested and taken, along with his wife, Gina María González García, to a safe house. She was exonerated, and he went straight to the maximum security prison of Guanajay in Artemisa.
Until he was removed from office, Gil Fernández was not only Minister of the Economy and Planning, but also Deputy Prime Minister and Miguel Díaz-Canel’s right-hand man. On March 7, 2024, a criminal case against the official was initially announced in a brief note signed by the president himself, alleging, without further details, “serious errors committed in the performance of his duties.”
The next thing that came out of the case, 20 months later, was a statement from the Prosecutor’s Office last Friday, which, without giving numbers or names, spoke of “other defendants” and reported that Gil was accused of “espionage, acts to the detriment of economic activity and contracting, embezzlement, bribery, falsification of public documents, tax evasion, influence trafficking, money laundering, violation of the rules on protection of classified documents, and theft and damage of documents and other objects in official custody.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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