María Victoria Gil Fernández, a resident in Spain, cites a “source close to the investigation”
14ymedio, Madrid, 1 November 2025 — “If Alejandro Gil has been capable of betraying his principles, I will not hesitate to wish that the full weight of the law falls upon him,” his sister María Victoria asserted this Saturday in statements to 14ymedio. She added that a “source close to the investigation” has “guaranteed” her that the prosecution is seeking a “life sentence.”
María Victoria (Vicky) Gil Fernández feels “hurt and ashamed” by the information the Cuban Attorney General’s Office has provided about her brother, the former Minister of Economy and Finance, accused of espionage, embezzlement, money laundering, and falsification of public documents. “I think of my parents who, wherever they are, must be covered in shame. The upbringing they gave us siblings was based on honesty and justice.”
Her words leave no doubt that, far from the view she shared with this newspaper in March 2024, when she emphasized the presumption of innocence for the then recently detained man, today she is closer to believing in her brother’s guilt.
The former Cuban television presenter, a lawyer by training and currently residing in the Canary Islands, considers “the sum of the alleged crimes exceptional,” especially that of espionage, “which is punishable by death.”
“In all cases, the defendants were asked to face prison sentences.”
When asked about the other defendants, about whom the prosecution has provided no information, Vicky Gil claims to know nothing more than what was “broadcast last night on Cuban Television’s flagship program.” Regarding her sister-in-law, Gina María González, and her nephews, she says, “I don’t know their situation because I have them blocked.”
The brief statement released by the Attorney General’s Office already suggested that the maximum penalty—death by firing squad—would not be sought in this case, even though it remains in force under the Penal Code. “In all cases, the defendants were offered prison sentences,” the statement read, indicating that the use of a penalty that has not been applied since 2003 was ruled out.
The former minister’s sister also hasn’t shed any light on Alejandro Gil’s whereabouts, which remain unknown. In her interview last year, she speculated: “In Cuba, there are special houses, belonging to State Security, very nice houses, in Miramar and Nuevo Vedado, where they take high-level, high-ranking people, in quotes, who are being investigated. That was the case with Carlos Lage and many others. They have every luxury and every comfort, and they aren’t mistreated, not at all. He must be in one of those houses; I don’t know which address.”
On that occasion, Vicky Gil also said: “Until the Public Prosecutor’s Office formally charges him with a crime, you can’t call him corrupt. That’s why I said I would file a lawsuit against the program ‘Con Filo’, because the presumption of innocence is mandatory.” The former presenter was surprised that in early February, when Gil was dismissed as minister, Miguel Díaz-Canel, with whom she was very close, had congratulated her on her birthday.
For the first time, the possibility of serious crimes “against the security of the State” is mentioned.
“The biggest contradiction is that the president of the Republic of Cuba dismisses my brother and that same day congratulates him on the achievements he has made, and my brother replies: ‘Thank you, Díaz-Canel, we are still with you,’ and then on March 7 they announce that they are investigating him. How can the president of Cuba not know what is happening?” she told 14ymedio.
The case of the former minister, dismissed in February 2024 after being presented for years as the “technical face” of the Díaz-Canel government, remains shrouded in secrecy and suspicion. For over a year and a half, the official narrative was limited to mentioning “serious errors in the performance of his duties,” without specifying concrete charges. However, in the Attorney General’s recent official statement, the possibility of serious crimes “against the security of the State” is mentioned for the first time.
Regarding the possibility of an exemplary trial, broadcast on television, the former presenter of the program De la Gran Escena added in her 2024 interview: “If a trial is held, as was done with [Arnaldo] Ochoa, where the State cleansed itself of all its crimes with one person, it acted cruelly knowing what was really behind Ochoa, the corruption that existed, I will go.”
The comparison with Arnaldo Ochoa, executed in July 1989 after a summary trial for drug trafficking and treason, was not accidental. The pro-government program Con Filo had used images of the general to refer to the case of Alejandro Gil, demanding “the full force of the law” against the ousted former minister.
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