A US judge acquitted Alexander Lazo Baró due to ” dementia “
14ymedio, Havana, 10 May 2024 — A month after a U.S. judge acquitted Alexander Alazo Baró of the charges attributed to him due to “insanity” after shooting in 2020 at the Cuban Embassy in Washington, the Cuban Foreign Ministry has issued a formal protest. According to a statement published on Thursday, the United States “has been unable to qualify the action for what it is: a terrorist act,” and alleges that the court’s decision “conveys a dangerous message of impunity for those who intend to take violent actions against diplomatic missions.”
Alazo Baró, of Cuban origin and a resident of the United States since 2010, fired 32 projectiles with an AK-47 rifle at the diplomatic headquarters on April 30, 2020.
Since then, the man has faced a judicial process that has lasted four years and in which he was charged with four counts – gunshot in a violent act, violent attack on an official with a deadly weapon, damage to property of a foreign government in the United States and possession of weapons – but this May he was acquitted by a judge of the Court for the District of Columbia.
The man has faced a judicial process that has lasted four years and in which he was charged with four counts
To the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the response of the US Justice is unacceptable. Alazo himself confessed that he was going with the intention of taking down whatever was in his way, even human beings if they had been in the line of fire. “It was a terrorist act in the capital city of the United States against a permanent diplomatic mission, “the statement said, recalling that this also “caused extensive material damage to the exterior and interior of the building and endangered the lives of several people who were inside the building. ”
“At the time of his arrest, Alazo’s regular association with the Doral Jesus Worship Center in Miami Dade was known, which gathers people with known conduct in favor of aggression, hostility, violence and extremism against Cuba,” it says.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also assures that the judicial process against Alazo Baró has been “full of opacity”. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also assures that the judicial process against Alazo Baró has been “full of opacity”. “The judge accepted a joint report by the Prosecutor’s Office and the defense of the terrorist Alexander Alazo Baró, which presents the perpetrator as someone who, at the time of the events, was not in possession of his mental faculties and, consequently, declares him innocent,” explains the official note, which accuses the United States of “politicizing” the attack. “This is demonstrated by the lengthy process to analyze proven facts,” it states.
Cuba alludes in the document to another attack – it was never ruled out that it could have been a suicide attack – on the diplomatic mission on September 24, 2023, when “an individual” threw two Molotov cocktails at the embassy’s fence and facade.” It is an event that occurred three years and five months after the attack perpetrated by Alazo. “Until now the law enforcement authorities of the United States claim not to know the author or have details of what happened, “says the note, suggesting Washington’s disinterest, which is accused of having a policy towards the island of “permanent incitement to violence, “which adds to the “hatred of U.S. politicians and anti-Cuban extremist groups. ”
Several media outlets and people close to the Cuban man stated that he suffered from psychiatric conditions
After the attack on the embassy and the subsequent arrest of Alazo Baró, several media and people close to the Cuban man stated that he had psychiatric conditions. In May 2020, an evangelical pastor from Florida, whose name was not revealed but who claimed to maintain a close relationship with the accused, told Diario Las Americas that the man was diagnosed with schizophrenia and obsessed with the idea that he was being persecuted.
The interviewee also ruled out any political motive in the attack on the Cuban Embassy and added that, according to his wife, Alazo was under treatment but the drugs no longer worked.
At the same time, a Prosecutor’s Office document on the case included other statements by Alazo’s wife, Marianys Alazo Delgado, who alleged that the detainee “believed that the Cuban Government would hire an organized team of assassins to kill him”.
“He felt that he was constantly persecuted and he feared that several black tall men with tattoos, would come to kill him in front of his family”
In addition, she explained that her husband suffered from paranoia, which had led him to go to several government agencies to report the Cuban government’s alleged intention to assassinate him; traveled to Germany in 2018 in order to escape his persecutors; and often slept in hotels far from the city .
He also said that in March 2020, a month before the attack, Alazo Baró had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital, diagnosed with a delusional disorder and discharged six days later after being prescribed some medications.
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