Author: Ángel Santiesteban

Angel Santiesteban Completes 10th Day on Hunger Strike. Report. / Angel Santiesteban

Yesterday, April 16, 2013, the attorney Amelia Rodríguez Cala interviewed Angel in Prison 1580.

Angel has been removed from the punishment cell but remains under very severe conditions and maintains his hunger strike until they respect his rights as a citizen and as a prisoner — whatever happens. He is unjustly imprisoned after a trial fabricated by State Security with the only purpose of silencing and discrediting him as a person and as the great writer he is.

Angel has lost a great deal of weight and today completed day ten without eating or drinking. We fear for his health and his life. continue reading

From here we hold Raul Castro responsible for everything that happens to Angel and we demand he be returned to La Lima prison from where — although he shouldn’t be there serving any sentence at all — he should not have been removed against his will and violently.

Every day that Angel is made to pay in the miserable Castro prisons for crimes he never committed, having proved his innocence ad infinitum, will be one more day that the dictatorship demonstrates to the world how it lies about the situation on the Island, and another day that the media learns about how it has misled them about the living conditions within the Castros’ prisons — and of course in the whole Island.

The living conditions in Cuba are miserable and freedom isn’t even a memory;  repression and violence on the part of State Security is our daily bread; the acts of repudiation are the expression of how they manipulate the people to punish the dissidence; the media are mere channels of propaganda; every day more Cubans risk their lives to escape from this island, not wanting to imagine what life is like in the Castro prisons, true concentration camps where they are not human beings, only objects, objectified bodies whom they constantly humiliate, deprive of all rights, and force to live in subhuman conditions and all this in the name of the “humanist” Revolution that the Castro dynasty has ruled over for 54 years.

We demand that Angel be returned to La Lima Prison immediately and that they guarantee ALL his rights.

We hold Raul Castro Ruz directly responsible, for Angel’s safety and integrity and reiterate that the same justice and the same rights that we demand for Angel we demand for all the prisoners in Cuba. And so, one more time, we demand the release of ALL THE POLITICAL PRISONERS.

We remember, Mr. Raul Castro, that when you assumed the presidency of CELAC you promised that you would act “with total fidelity to international law, the Charter of the United nations and the fundamental principles that govern relations between countries.” During your speech of January 28, 2013, you also said, “We reject interference, the threat and use of force, and dedicate ourselves to dialog.” What happened to your promises? You should be ashamed and you should behave in conformance with the commitment you yourself assumed.

The Editor, in the name of Angel’s family and friends.

17 April 2013

Prison Diary XIII. They have dubbed me “Mandela.” I have started to be their hope. / Angel Santiesteban

The 5 spies, who committed bloody acts and spied for a foreign country, have not been punished like they do with any prisoner in Cuba. Here they humiliate and constantly harass them.

They, the Castros, say that at the Guantanamo Naval Base they commit horrors, but they don’t say what they know because they commit the same abuses they “denounce” daily.

Here the prisoners swallow nails, springs or pieces of spoons to demand their rights, or at least have the opportunity to explain to someone.

Amused, I always have to laugh and respond to my new name, no matter how many times I tell them to call me Ángel or Political — like they used to — but they have baptized me Mandela. I have begun to be their hope despite finding me isolated, although without them letting the two prisoners who helped me get even to the door of my cell; I’m totally isolated.

I asked for my glasses and they also refused me. The only thing I can do is write on the walls, except that there is less space left, and I’ll have to figure out how to reach the ceiling; I’ll have to do something about it. Writing is a mania, a necessity and a duty. When they searched me on my arrival, twelve guards commanded by Major Erasmus did it.  And I told them that my weapons were in my mind and they couldn’t get them out of there.

I thank God for giving me the protection and constant companion in my lonely hours, but I’m also grateful to be here, they provide me Literature and complaints against the regime.

God, forgive the dictators and their henchmen.

cropped-firma

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats
1580 Prison. April 2013.

Editor’s Note: Ángel Santiesteban-Prats finishes on his ninth day of a hunger strike today.

God Inc. / Angel Santiesteban

Dios SA

1

From Monday the 8th at 7pm. Without water, nor clothes, nor toiletries, without light, on a concrete bed.

God Inc.

Imitating my patriotic readings
they suppressed my horizon.
I took hold of your name,
of memory the last station.

Every letter engraved
on the silent walls of my cell,
swiftly came the hummingbirds
to applaud the end of my concert.

The  spit lost its reach,
roaches played on my face,
my mother gave me a one way ticket
although she knew that love wasn’t surrendering.

The train departed with one aboard,
smudging the image on the window,
for an instance two dried up cats
were following the shadow of a dream.

Prison. 1580  San Miguel del Padrón
In solitary confinement and starvation.

epitaph
Here lies Angel Santiesteban Prats, controversial, patriot, slandered and friend.
He lived and died as he imagined the best novels.

Translated by: Ernesto Ariel Suarez

12 April 2013

The slap of the intellectual is almost always eternal even if it costs him his life / Angel Santiesteban

Hey UNEAC

Dear Members of UNEAC (the Writers and Artists Union of Cuba): (take note). Angel Santiesteban [is a worm in prison]. Revolutionarily, Me [Raul]

The honeymoon between the Intellectual and Power will always be incestuous. They are distant, different roads that will be forced to converge, an arm wrestling where the same one doesn’t always win, even though when it’s Power’s turn it hits harder, but eventually it will be forgotten in time except to remember its negativity.

The slap of the intellectual is almost always eternal even if it costs him his life.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

Official statement on the irregular situation of Angel Santiesteban-Prats

Angel’s family wants to inform the international community where we stand as of tonight April 12, 2013.

Last week, the regime tried to hide Angel in the Salvador Allende military hospital with the excuse of a dermatological treatment he is receiving, to avoid his having access to talk to the Commission of National and International Journalists accredited to visit La Lima Prison on Tuesday last, April 9. Given the outright refusal of Angel to be taken to the hospital, he was informed that he would be given a pass for a few hours to go to his house. He was even advised in a phone call that they would call indicating what time they should pick him up on Monday.

That call never took place. And after many inquiries it was reported to his friends that he had been taken by force and handcuffed to an unknown destination. It also emerged that Angel tried to resist the transfer — illegal of course — and they would have undertaken in any event on Sunday night.

The family waited for the phone call that any prisoner is entitled to but that call never came. Attorney Amelia Rodriguez Cala — after visiting La Lima — was informed that Angel had been transferred to the Prison 15-80, The Pitirre, in San Miguel del Padrón, a severe regime facility. She had made all the relevant official arrangements to visit her client and it was agreed she would visit this morning, Thursday, April 11, at 11 am.

The attorney Rodriguez Cala appeared at Prison 15-80 at the set time but was denied the visit. Some officers told that Angel is housed in solitary confinement and is on hunger strike. It is the first time that the lawyer was refused the right to visit a defendant.

None of this has been confirmed because to the unlawful transfer of Angel we must add a new violation of his rights: not allowing his lawyer to visit.

At this time and without knowing anything for sure about Angel, his family, his lawyer and all his friends are extremely concerned. We fear for his safety. We all know that when a prisoner is beaten savagely they will not show him publicly until they can erase the traces of the crime. We fear that this is the case. And to our uncertainty is added the fact of not having the certain knowledge that he is confined in Prison 15-80 and that it could be just one more lie of the regime.

From here, from his blog, this space of freedom that has led to the situation he now finds himself in, wrongly convicted after a rigged trial based on the false allegations made against Angel by the mother of his son — Kenya Rodriguez — his family and friends demand from Raul Castro Ruz that he to enforce all legal guarantees established by law and that Angel be granted the visit of rigor required by law that his lawyer can determine where he is and what is the state of his health.

From here on out we hold the government of Raul Castro Ruz absolutely responsible for what might happen to Angel and we demand his immediate appearance in perfect physical health.

International public opinion through the media and human rights organizations is aware of what they are doing to Ángel Santiesteban-Prats. The mantle of impunity is increasingly slim. And we will not stop until it breaks completely and there is justice for all Cubans.

We also demand that the commission of journalists who are visiting Cuban prisons fulfill their sacred duty to tell the truth and do not lend themselves to being crass puppets in the Castro theater. The life and safety of thousands of prisoners across the island depend on their compliance with the moral imperative and the ethical duty of the journalist. Therefore, we also hold them responsible for what may happen to Angel and all Cuban prisoners, whether political or common.

At dawn on April 12, we are waiting to find Ángel Santiesteban-Prats in perfect health.

Signed: The editor of the blog: The Children Nobody Wanted

12 April 2013

Urgent: Angel Santiesteban Prats Was Transferred And His Whereabouts are Unknown

Today the Human Rights Commission was scheduled to visit La Lima Penitentiary. Because of this they planned to take Angel Santiesteban to the Salvador Allende Military Hospital so that he would not have access to this Commission. At his blunt refusal to enter the hospital they were going to give him a pass for a few hours to go home. He woke up expecting to be taken there. But instead he found himself handcuffed and taken no one knows where. Since this morning we have been waiting in vain for news. We hope there wasn’t an incident when he was transferred but we don’t know any more.

We pray that you spread this news as widely as possible.

9 April 2013

Angel Santiesteban on Hunger Strike

The writer Ángel Santiesteban has declared a hunger strike and has been confined to a punishment cell

Sunday, the authorities took him “by force” from La Lima prison, one of the prisons that was preparing to receive a visit from Cuban and foreign journalists.

“He wanted to see the journalists and tell them about his case,” the activist Antonio Rodiles said.

Santiesteban is now in Prison 1580, San Migeul de Padron, incommunicado in a punishment cell.

The guards told his attorney, Amelia Rodriguez Cala, that the writer was on “voluntary starvation” and refused to let her meet with him.

Santiesteban, condemned to five years in prison after a trial without legal guarantees, could be suffering from skin cancer, according to the doctors caring for him.

Translated from DiariodeCuba.com

11 April 2013

Quinones breaks the silence of UNEAC with respect to the case of Angel Santiesteban / Angel Santiesteban

From Montenegro to Santiesteban

 

By Roberto Jesus Quinones Haces

Guantanamo, Cuba, Apri, http://www.cubanet.org — Carlos Montenegro and Angel Santiesteban are not the only Cuban writers to have suffered the misfortune of incarceration; the latter twice.

At barely 19 years of age, Carlos Montenegro was condemned to 14 years and eight months in jail for the commission of a bloody act in which a person died.  He had the luck of meeting, in the prison’s Cashier’s Office, Jose Zacarias Tallet and establishing a friendship with him.  From that relationship it is affirmed that Montenegro’s literary vocation emerged.  There, too, he met Pablo de la Torriente Brau.

In 1928, after having published some of his texts in the magazines Social and Orto, with his story El Renuevo he won a literary prize organized by the magazine Carteles, a fact that generated a wave of sympathy for him and abundant solidarity for his situation.  Intellectuals of such stature as Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring and Zacarias Tallet himself joined with other prestigious writers and numerous journalists in asking Gerardo Machado to free the writer forged in the bowels of squalor and confinement.  But Machado refused.  Montenegro left jail at 31 years of age when the Machadato — the Machodo dictatorship — was fatally wounded.

Angel Santiesteban Prats was born in Havana in 1965.  In 1995 he won the “Luis Felipe Rodriguez” prize UNEAC awards in the story genre for his book South: latitude 13.  In 2001 he won the “Alejo Carpentier” story prize for The children nobody wanted, and in 2006 the “House of the Americas” prize for his book Blessed are those who mourn. continue reading

I do not know whether Santiesteban is responsible for the events for which he has been punished. Nor am I his friend. I write these lines from my condition as a simple member of UNEAC, because I do not think all the writers and intellectuals of this organization are in agreement that there is an ominous silence surrounding the event.

Outstanding figures of our culture, like Pedro Pablo Oliva and Pablo Milanes, who have been the objects of unconscionable attacks when they have dared to express opinions dissenting from the government and the national direction of UNEAC, have not spoken about it either.

The answer some months ago that the national direction of UNEAC offered to the tendentious accusations of a State Security agent against Reyna Maria Rodriguez and other Cuban intellectuals does not amount to a rule but the exception.  Once more the deplorable silence of a great part of Cuban intellectuals remains on the agenda, just like the paralyzing fear that impedes the exercise of values anywhere in the world they identify someone who works in favor of the culture.

If Santiesteban were responsible for the events — which according to what I have read on Cubanet happened four years ago — in the Cuban Penal Code there exists all the legal presumptions to prevent his imprisonment, substituting the sanction of imprisonment for another less rigorous, much more so when dealing with a prestigious intellectual, a person of good social and moral conduct, for an event whose incidence is insignificant within the framework of habitual violence that exists in the country and specifically in Havana.

We all know, including those who put together the file, that prosecutors who requested the sanction and the judges who ordered it — that Santiesteban is not “anti-social.” It is very difficult to admit that in our country it is justice when an intellectual is imprisoned, while those who sank the “13 de Marzo” tugboat and caused the deaths of innocent people, including children, continue to walk the streets with impunity.

Those who have imprisoned Santiesteban have done a disservice to the Cuban government, as if it had no more acute problems than adding another charge of this kind, because the international resonances begin to be felt very quickly. Rather than imprison him, these proxies should wonder why a man who emerged within what was once the revolution detaches himself from it, what are the causes of increased dissent and the stampede of our population to foreign countries, to social apathy, vulgarity and the loss of values in our society.

They should be consistent with the assumption that “Cuba is a Socialist State of workers, independent and sovereign, organized with all and for the good of all, as a unitary and democratic republic, for the enjoyment of political freedom, social justice, the individual and collective well-being and human solidarity,” as defined in Article 1 of the Constitution.

We all know that if Santiesteban did not have a blog to express himself freely, he would not have gone to prison for such a minor charge. From my humble condition as a man of culture, also discriminated against, I can only say that those in charge of asking for freedom for Santiesteban can put my name on any list to be drawn up for that purpose.

Hopefully this excess will soon be rectified. The Cuban government does not win anything with this error, nor does it need more enemies. Rather than continue this policy against dissent, it should open itself to dialogue in order to take out country, once and for all, on path of peace and understanding. Hopefully the government’s stubbornness will not make Cuba into another Syria.

8 April 2013

Urgent: Angel Santiesteban Prats Was Transferred And His Whereabouts are Unknown / Angel Santiesteban

Today the Human Rights Commission was scheduled to visit La Lima Penitentiary. Because of this they planned to take Angel Santiesteban to the Salvador Allende Military Hospital so that he would not have access to this Commission. At his blunt refusal to enter the hospital they were going to give him a pass for a few hours to go home. He woke up expecting to be taken there. But instead he found himself handcuffed and taken no one knows where. Since this morning we have been waiting in vain for news. We hope there wasn’t an incident when he was transferred but we don’t know any more.

We pray that you spread this news as widely as possible.

9 April 2013

Prison Diary XI: A. Santiesteban: “I Refuse to be Transferred to Salvador Allende Military Hospital” / Angel Santiesteban

Editor’s note

I just got this telephone message from Angel Santiesteban-Prats in which he informed me that they wanted to take him to the Salvador Allende military hospital against his will. I am making this communication public right now in hopes of what the response has been of those who are supposed to transport him.

I hope to have more information in the coming minutes.

Message from Angel Santiesteban

I’ve never been in favor of sensationalist or tabloid news, so I’ve preferred to remain silent until now, when the circumstances warrant making it known.

With 10 days of finding myself in prison dark spots began to appear on my face, which I only paid attention to when they also appeared on my arm. I went to consultation of the prison doctor who sent me to the dermatologist who gave me an appointment for the next day at the surgery, where the doctor applied a substance to the marks causing burns. The specialist explained to me this is the procedure for this type of skin cancer that usually appears in white skinned people after 40 years. Days later the scabs were falling off leaving a pink colored area.

Today, April 5, they sent for me from the medical station to inform me that they would be taking me to the Salvador Allende hospital for a checkup, particularly for these spots that were treated. I refused outright, I will not go to any military health center and my position is firm.

They also told me that Antonio Rodiles cannot visit me any more, as he has on two previous visits. When asked the reason they said he wasn’t family, nor is he a friend who ideologically makes “a positive contribution to the revolutionary process.” I let them know that I was here precisely for my ideas which agree with those of Rodiles, and the officer shrugged, a gesture which implies that there are “orders from above,” where a General, not a Captain, rules.

Now I’m waiting for them to come and hospitalize me. I don’t know what will happen in the face of my refusal to go with them and what their reaction will be.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

La Lima Prison, Guanabacoa, 1:00 PM

5 April 2013

Prison Diary X. The “5″ (Sybarites) Don’t Like Chicken / Angel Santiesteban

Nutritious Diet

The prisoners I share this barracks with tell me they read in the newspaper Granma that the 5 spies condemned in the U.S. complained because their jailers had offered them chicken twice. That is, they were protesting because they repeated the menu.

When I was free, I always heard these comments that seemed absurd and I immediately looked for a way to find someone on the internet to verify with. Now, in the conditions in which I survive in this prison it’s impossible to verify anything.

The truth is that it makes me laugh the way the prisoners here with me hear the news. I’ve heard several times, and I always have to laugh: this repetition of chicken that the spies complain of would be a reasons for a celebration among the inmates in this prison.

Some Fridays, on a holiday, they deliver what is normally recognized as a fourth of a chicken. That day the dining room is full. The other days it’s preferable to be on hunger strike. I myself, for example, spent five days without going to the dining room. I prefer to survive on cookies and toast that my family brings and that I keep, like a treasure, in a sack.

I have also read the statements of the Spanish political, Angel Carromero, who was driving the car in which we lost Oswaldo Paya and Harold Cepero. He said that his six months of imprisonment in Cuba was enough to leave him traumatized and needing medical help.

We have to remember that Carromero was held in a special prison for foreigners, that he also had the oversight of the embassy, and the obvious treatment of the political police to “sweeten him up,” so that the real version of what happened that fateful day won’t come to light.

We should ask, regardless of any prison, wherever it is, it’s always difficult to face and endure, what’s left for us who are in these inhumane prisons, with almost no food and with the extra weight of the known evil prosecutions for justice?

Neither the 5 spies nor Carromero know what a prison really is.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

La Lima Prison. April 2013.

5 April 2013

Prison Diary IX: A People Who Avoid Their Government / Angel Santiesteban

The prisons barracks are overcrowded with prisoners who, for the most part, have committed the crime of “embezzlement.” They have stolen State assets, which according to “socialist legality” belong to the people, public good managed by the Castro brothers for more than fifty years, plunging the country into poverty.

A contradiction: if the goods belong to the people, and they, due to hunger, take an infinitesimal part of their property, they commit no offense and therefore they should not be punished.

In any event, this is only in theory; in practice they are serving time for it, while complaining about the impossibility of surviving on the wages of their work.

“If I don’t take what I consider I’ve earned by my efforts, I can’t feed my family. In my case I did it because I wanted to buy a pair of shoes for my daughter for her fifteenth birthday,” a man with teary eyes told me. Another approached to tell me that he is in prison for selling at satellite dish, the dish only, not the receiver, eyes wide as if looking into the abyss. “They exaggerated in the search they made of my home. When they searched a neighbor, looking for drugs, it wasn’t so exhaustive; in my case, because of the lack of information, they are worried about people seeing images of freedom.”

A great part of this mass of “embezzlers” are directors of companies, buyers, warehouse managers… anyone who has within their reach some item that can sell, buy, rent, and profit from that will then serve to acquire the elements vital to the lives of their children.

In a corroded, worn-out society, where young people, the children nobody wanted, only think about leaving the country or stealing to survive, it’s logical to think that the prisons are overcrowded with the worst fed.

The dictatorship ignores the demands of a society to have, in the political and economic order it offers its citizens, most of all its young people, a reality that guarantees present and future prosperity.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

La Lima Prison, March 2013

3 April 2013

A Caricature of Angel Santiesteban’s Trial / Angel Santiesteban

By María Matienzo Puerto

(English text taken from Havana Times)

HAVANA TIMES — The last time I spoke with Angel, I told him to have faith, because the truth always ends up coming out. At the same time I wondered why a feminist had to defend an alleged spouse abuser. Were the accusations true?

These questions didn’t make me doubt the innocence of Angel Santiesteban. Instead, they gave me reasons to write about this subject. With this narcissist melee (in some cases) the reasons were clarified in my mind.

I say this because violence against women and girls can’t be a political pretext for stifling an uncomfortable voice among Cuban intellectuals. To accept a trial like the one that ended up sentencing Angel turns the struggle against violence directed at women and girls into a cartoon, a farce, a stupid joke.

In the Alamar community where I live, in its 48 six-floor apartment buildings, in more than half of them there are or have been acts of violence against women or girls. So how can we allow someone to lie to us and then carry that lie — forged on the pain of others — to the ultimate consequences?

I don’t think I’m going to add much more to what has already been discussed online about Angel. This diary post and an interview with Wilfredo Vallin (the president of the Cuban Law Association, an independent NGO in Cuba), who was closely following the process, clarifies some points that initially appeared obscure to me.

There’s no question that Angel Santiesteban’s sentence means our continuing to accept our condemnation to breadcrumbs when we really deserve more: the right to express ourselves freely, to think freely, more access to social networks, to information. The list is very long.

It was a trial that affects us all.

Careful!

After 55 years, the gates of the island and its immovable and obsolete system are opening. Given that UMAP and other repressive institutions don’t scare anyone any more; this may be a new strategy for filling us with the fear to speak about what actually happens between our four walls.

Angel Santiesteban might be the scapegoat with whom they’re showing us how our own hides could end up.

March 21, 2013

Prison Diary VII. My Life in a Story / Angel Santiesteban

Norman Manea

Norman Manea

Recently I’ve been reading the book “Mandatory Happiness” by the Romanian writer Norman Manea, deported as a child with his family to a Ukrainian concentration camp, and the way the author masterfully describes an everyday story under a totalitarian government has caught my attention in a powerful way: the Romanian political police arrest an artist who collaborates with the opposition and subject her to continuous torture sessions, a constant ritual day and night, in an attempt to drive her mad. These old-school KGB techniques are applied under the advice of the entire socialist camp, including Cuba, of course.

In the first story of the book, captivating from the very beginning, “The Interrogator,” an obscure character of the political polices — superbly characterized — after brutally torturing his victim, says:

“Maybe we’ll let you go. Although we could also condemn you. Not necessarily for political crimes. We’re looking for something else. We still haven’t decided. I’ve been frank with you. Don’t kid yourself, I’m not always honest (…) The freedom to work, the freedom to love, the freedom of creation. Nice, no? It’s normal that artists, for all you are and especially for all you are not, become rebels.

“In short, the artist is a precursor or a straggler.

Whatever you are, you’re a being outside the ordinary. You haven’t found your place, your tranquility, your harmony. You’re not understood in your profession, your family, the laws; you’ve chosen a completely different form of vanity. Art, clearly, has as its starting point a dislocation, an inadequacy, an uprooting. But fed…

(…) You have established, you have confirmed. That you’ll always be in the opposition, I mean. Freedom (…) It is normal that you’re with all the dispossessed (…) In the end, the books are filled up there.”

Norman Minea, like a prophet, wrote a part of my immediate reality, or simply bore witness to the many times they suffered the persecutions, the torture and the punishment in his country. The only thing I know of socialism. And what always lines up, even though we are separated by continents and time: the same way to silence dissonant voices.

I simply ask for an ode to Norman Menea.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats. La Lima Prison. March 2013

29 March 2013

Angel Santiesteban Responds to the Havana Times / Angel Santiesteban

In my response to the statement “March 8: Everyone against violence” — a campaign to collect signatures against gender violence that exploited the supposed crime imputed to me — launched from Havana by Sandra Álvarez, Marilyn Bobes, Luisa Campuzano, Zaida Capote Cruz, Danae Diéguez, Laidi Fernández de Juan, Lirians Gordillo Piña and Helen Hernández Hormilla, I didn’t only say I was innocent.

I said much more through the means of expression that has given me the chance to be as emphatic and explicit and warranted by the events in which I’m implicated. But knowing that my words may not be enough, I sought help as well, from the forceful video that demonstrates my innocence with absolute clarity.

I did more: I interviewed the lead official investigator in the case, in the presence of witnesses. He didn’t remember me, I had to remind him of some facts, and later would remember, he was surprised that that archived file was copied, and that it had been copied behind his back.

I related the events and his reaction was complete surprise. I talked about the version of the complaint about a rape and told me that the first night she had already presented a medical certificate. He sent her with a police officer to the doctor, but the new certificate did not reflect the injuries that appeared in the first certificate that she had, and with regard to the rape, she barely insinuated it, the instructor told her to call Legal Medicine and she refused. It was then that the complainant decided to change her account.

While this first investigator was off the case to take a course through which he would become a lieutenant, another official had taken up the case against me and returned to the charge of supposed sexual violence and failed to say that the first Investigator had the Legal Medicine report and that she had retracted the accusation and changed her version.

When this official Investigator returned to his duties and read on my computer the statement that the complainant had made before the new Investigator who had taken up the case, he was furious and asked me to present it at trial as a witness for the defense.

The complainant has lied left and right about everything that didn’t suit her, and not only against me, because her statements are contradicted by what she declared to the first Investigator.

It was my lawyer who decided not to this officer as a witness for the defense, because he believed it unnecessary with witnesses and evidence presented, and analyzing the weak evidence of the prosecution, it was clear we had a considerable advantage.

As could be seen in the trial and then in the judgment and the appeal of my conviction, my verdict never relied on evidence or on a serious and legal analysis. The number of irregularities and violations and the police and legal budgets make more than obvious the Government’s revenge.

Still those who live on the island could understand, since they don’t have access to the media to inform themselves. Some do, but those never say anything against the process, always fearing the consequences, but those who live abroad, they have a way to inform themselves and seeing the brand new “witness” for the Prosecution telling the truth of all the facts: how he was bribed, pressured to testify against me, they have resounding evidence of what lies behind this process.

Do not ask about my innocence, see it with your own eyes. I communicate one thing: the witness, after being filmed and when the video was made public, was visited by the complainant and accompanied by here to the Police Station to accuse me of “threat” and lied again saying the video had been recorded under that threat, so they opened another line of “attack” because I had allegedly threatened a prosecution witness.

But thanks to the response of police experts, it was determined that the video is genuine, not edited or manipulated and that the witness is not threatened. They recommended then to the Investigator that he clarify his statements, making it clear that I was right and that the witness was manipulated in his statements against me.

I’m not saying anything you can’t see on the Internet. We have put many things there to prove my innocence. However, no one has access to the accusations of the Prosecution it would be very easy then to discover any irregularities in the process, the contradictions in the statements of the complainant and the alleged witness.

As for me, the evidence defends me. So I repeat: I urge the Government, that is the real Prosecutor in this process, to present any evidence against me other than my slanted handwriting.

Ángel Santiesteban Prats
Prison La Lima.
Guanabacoa. Havana

15 March 2013