According to the Santiago de Cuba court, Guillermo Sánchez Gutiérrez stabbed the officer until he was certain he had killed him and acted out of revenge.
14ymedio, Madrid, November 1, 2026 – The First Criminal Chamber of the Provincial People’s Court of Santiago de Cuba sentenced Guillermo Sánchez Gutiérrez to life imprisonment for fatally stabbing the head of the National Police substation in the area where he lived, in the municipality of Palma Soriano, according to a report published this Saturday by the official newspaper Sierra Maestra.
The First Criminal Chamber of the Provincial People’s Court of Santiago de Cuba sentenced Guillermo Sánchez Gutiérrez to life imprisonment for fatally stabbing the head of the National Police substation in the area where he lived, in the municipality of Palma Soriano, according to a report published this Saturday by the official newspaper Sierra Maestra.
The verdict was announced this Saturday following a trial described as “exemplary,” corresponding to case 73 of 2026, in which the defendant was sentenced for murder, illegal possession of a knife, unlawful entry into a residence, and threats, with the aggravating circumstance of acting out of revenge.
The crime dates back to July 19, 2025. According to the court’s account, that day Sánchez Gutiérrez encountered the National Police auxiliary officer, dressed in civilian clothes, at a neighbor’s house. There, he unexpectedly attacked him with a knife, inflicting a deep wound to one leg, “telling him that this was the last time he would see him.”
Although injured, the officer managed to run about 60 meters and take refuge in another neighbor’s home. The assailant pursued him there, broke down the door, and stabbed him again in the abdomen, back, and legs. The report specifies that he left only after making sure he had killed him.
In imposing the life sentence, the court took into account “the significance of the incident” and the “high degree of social dangerousness” of an act that targeted a person carrying out his duties as a police auxiliary officer.
The sentence applies Articles 344 and 380 of the Penal Code, which punish murder with 20 to 30 years of imprisonment, life imprisonment, or the death penalty, and unlawful entry into a residence with two to five years. The court also considered the aggravating circumstance of acting out of revenge or retaliation, provided for in Article 80.
The convicted man was also deprived of his public rights and ordered to pay a pension for each of the victim’s two minor children, as well as cover the funeral expenses.
In imposing the life sentence, the court took into account “the significance of the incident,” the “high degree of social dangerousness” of an act targeting someone performing duties as a police auxiliary officer, and the defendant’s characteristics, describing him as having poor social conduct and a criminal record.
In comments on the report published by the official media outlet, numerous users criticized the fact that such a severe sentence is not applied with the same rigor when the victims are civilians, something that, according to several commenters, occurs especially in cases of femicide. The number of such crimes in the first ten months of 2026 has already surpassed the total for the previous year, according to this newspaper’s tally. “When a woman or another person is murdered, why isn’t the same procedure followed?” one user wrote. Another commenter summed up the discontent this way: “Once again, a sentence that is not applied equally to murders of women, children, and rapists. It isn’t fair.”
“Once again, a sentence that is not applied equally to murders of women, children, and rapists. It isn’t fair.”
This is not the first time the Cuban justice system has resorted to life imprisonment when the victim is a police officer. In February of this year, the same Santiago de Cuba court sentenced three young men to life imprisonment for murdering a police officer and stealing his motorcycle. In March, the Provincial Court of Camagüey imposed a life sentence on Osvaldo Fernández Pichardo for stabbing a female officer who survived. Authorities classified that case as “terrorism” and claimed that someone in the United States had offered him $600 to carry out the attack.
These are just some examples from this year, but such cases have been reported before, presented by the official press as exemplary trials. In 2020, another young man was also sentenced to life imprisonment for killing a police officer at a police station in Calabazar, Havana, and injuring two others.
The official report does not give the name of the murdered officer. A few days after the crime, independent media outlets reported that a police officer identified as Yoleysi had been fatally stabbed in the Paraná neighborhood of Palma Soriano while attempting to deliver a summons to a young man. The similarities in location, approximate date, and weapon suggest that this is the same case.
The sentence comes at a time when the eastern part of the country is experiencing a spate of crimes that the authorities do not report officially. In Palma Soriano, for example, three murders were independently documented in just three months. Women have also been among the most frequent victims of violence in the province: in June, 23-year-old Rosaidis Donatien was murdered by her husband, also in Palma Soriano; in July, 17-year-old Merlin Noay died days after her stepfather attacked her in Yerba de Guinea, in Songo La Maya; and in September, 25-year-old Yadelaine Roque Torres was murdered by her former partner in a rural area near El Cobre.
Crime in Cuba shows signs of increasingly lethal violence, advancing alongside the country’s alarming crisis. According to monitoring by Cubalex, 52 homicides were documented in August, 40.5% more than the 37 recorded in July, marking a record for the independent organization’s data for the second consecutive month. That month, a total of 314 incidents of violence and insecurity were also recorded, including homicides, robberies, and assaults.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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