Answering the Requests of Those Who Are Looking for Holes / Angel Santiesteban

Many people ask me to clarify some points that tarnish the credibility of my case and situation. As Internet is the playground of all, we can utter truths, but also otherwise. And every time, after every event, positive or negative, that happens in my life, I have a bunch of people trying to highlight an insidious observation, creating doubt and suggesting, in general, that I’m lying.

Among them, some even tell me that there are people who think I’m imprisoned because of a family dispute. That possibility seems impossible to me since the all evidence of my innocence can be found on the Internet, and nothing, not a single thing, against me.

So how can anyone even suggest that what the government in power says about me is true. I have exposed to public review all my proofs, I proved that I am innocent. On top of that, I made a video of an alleged witness for State Security’s Prosecution and the “plaintiff” against me. I absolute believe that, after seeing this proof, among many others, no one can accept the version of the State against me.

After someone makes a pact with the State, with its political police, and its legal arm, it could appear plausible. I’ve said a thousand times before opening my blog I was [in the eyes of the regime itself] an exemplary citizen, save for my writing which was already, from my start, rebellious.

I was also an exemplary father, and spent more than two and half years lovingly and physically separated from my ex, with whom I have a beloved son.

I have also offered the name of Major Pablo, chief of the sector chiefs of the municipality of Plaza.

In my blog you can read all the irregularities of the trial, it was just a circus, and a month before the sentence was handed down the henchman Camilo announced my sentence to me, with the number of years I would serve. Is he psychic?

It can also be seen in the sentence, after the appeal and review, that I was badly sentenced, but nonetheless they are not interested in amending it. Anywhere in the world, that sentence should be thrown out. And in front of the whole world, I ask for a new trial.

File of Angel Santiesteban’s Case (click to open)

To make matters worse, the journalist Juan Carlos Linares Balmaseda, from Cubanet, interviewed me. They immediately asked how it was possible that he could have access to me. I urge those who have questions to ask the journalist to see how terrified he was, and how he had to escape before finishing so he wouldn’t be arrested. In that interview he took a picture, the one where I am at the end of the unit where they keep me locked up, which adjoins a street and homes. That was the appropriate space to do it.

Under my sentence (five years), I have the right to leave on a pass every sixty days. After eight months in prison, I was awarded the first pass and visited the home of Antonio Rodiles and in the happiness of family, they gave me a cake and me took a portrait.

That day gave rise to more gossip, sowing doubts, saying I was released and just pretending to be a prisoner, and so many stupid things that they don’t deserve mention. Then Aimara Pérez came to Cuba and spent a day visiting my family. I allowed her to photograph me. This prison settlement ends at the end of a street. Then some said I was in the street. At the end there is a Girón bus they keep here, and others said that the picture was taken on a public street. It is like looking for the detail to fit the official version.

I have no doubt that those who are interested in these false details have another interest which is not the freedom of Cuba. It only remains to add that anyone who has any doubts can look for evidence on the internet or can approach me, can find ways to reach me, and after that conversation, then you will be allowed to issue an opinion supported by your own inquiries.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

Prison settlement of Lawton, January 2014