14ymedio, Havana, 10 February 2023 — The Cuban authorities have confirmed the discovery of the body of Guperto Rafael Cánovas Adán, a 72-year-old taxi driver from Camagüey who had been missing since February 3, according to his relatives.
The news, which had been circulating on social networks since Wednesday, was officially corroborated by the Ministry of the Interior, which also admits that the body had signs of violence and, without expressing it literally, that the cause of the attack was a robbery.
“The alleged perpetrators were arrested in Havana and the car that had been taken from the victim was seized,” says the statement, reproduced by the official press and its networks.
The alleged perpetrators, of whom no details are known, will be referred to the Prosecutor’s Office to be criminally prosecuted, the note emphasizes.
The journalist from Camagüey, José Luis Tan Estrada, had made the situation known last Saturday, February 4, alerted by the relatives of Cánovas. Two young men and a woman had hired his services as a private taxi driver the day before and he had not returned home since.
On Tuesday, the reporter asked his followers not to spread rumors that could harm the family, but just a day later he himself was able to confirm the news of the discovery of the body.
“Today the people of Camagüey mourn another victim of this wave of violence that has no end,” wrote Tan Estrada, who in the last week has called attention to the multitude of cases that are coming to light of violent robberies and deaths in the province.
The journalist recalled the alleged murder of Yudel López, an employee of an insurance office, who recently went to work on a state electric tricycle and never arrived.
“They stabbed him until he was defenseless, until they took him to a house and there they finished him off in the most inhuman way that exists. They threw his body in a sack with a stone and threw it into the river. Everything was discovered because the murderers were selling the tricycle in Vertientes and they caught them,” said Tan Estrada, citing a source close to the deceased.
The communicator was also one of the people who provided the greatest follow-up to the case of Leidy Bacallao Santana, 17 years old and murdered by her ex-partner in Camalote. The young woman died at the hands of Elesvan Hidalgo, about 50 years old and with whom she had had a relationship, when she tried to take refuge in the police station in the face of the man’s threats and persecution.
Social networks have caused news of murders and robberies to spread more than in the past, when the state communications monopoly controlled any uncomfortable information. As a result, authorities are increasingly being forced to confirm this kind of information.
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