Melody González Pedraza presided over the Villa Clara court that sentenced four young people to prison on May 8
14ymedio, Madrid, May 31, 2024 — Cuban judge Melody González Pedraza, who among other sentences gave four years in prison for attack, has been detained in Florida awaiting a judicial resolution after requesting asylum. According to Martí Noticias this Friday, the magistrate arrived at Tampa International Airport on Thursday after receiving humanitarian parole.
Upon arrival, the immigration authorities denied her entry into the United States because of her history in Cuba, but she invoked political asylum, according to her sponsor, Roberto Castellón. One of the cases that González Pedraza judged as president of the Popular Municipal Court of Encrucijada, in Villa Clara, detailed by Martí Noticias, was that of four young people accused of throwing Molotov cocktails against a jeep and homes of the heads of the Police and State Security of the same Villa Clara municipality on November 18, 2022.
The judgment was handed down with a sentence on May 8, 2024. For this reason, she was included by the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba on its list of repressors. According to the text, to which Martí Noticias had access, she imposed, for the crime of attack, four years in prison on Andy Gabriel González Fuentes, Eddy Daniel Rodríguez Pérez and Luis Ernesto Medina Pedraza, and three years on Adain Barreiro Pérez.
Rodríguez Pérez’s mother, Marisol Rodríguez Millán, says that it was a “rigged trial” and told Martí Noticias that her son, now in prison, had been granted U.S. humanitarian parole. “She gave the boys four years, taking away my son’s privilege of being able to go to the United States. However, for her, a revolutionary judge, who has put so many boys in prison unjustly, she was granted parole and given freedom,” she complained to the American media.
Ana Iris Pedraza Balero, mother of Luis Ernesto Medina Pedraza, also complained about the possibility of the judge being granted political asylum on American territory: “I think it should not be granted, because she used her position to commit the greatest and most atrocious injustices in the world. Take the case of these four boys: she abused her position, abused her power, and now she wants to live freely and to the fullest, without paying for anything she did.”
“She gave the boys four years, taking away my son’s privilege of being able to go to the United States.”
Rodríguez Pérez’s mother, Marisol Rodríguez Millán, says the trial was “rigged ” and told Martí Noticias that her son, now in prison, had been granted U.S. humanitarian parole. “She gave the boys four years, taking away my son’s privilege of being able to go to the United States because he had been granted humanitarian parole. However, for her, such a revolutionary judge, who has put so many boys in prison unjustly, she was granted parole and given freedom,” she complained to the American media.
Ana Iris Pedraza Balero, mother of Luis Ernesto Medina Pedraza, also complained about the possibility of the judge being granted political asylum on American territory: “I think it should not be granted, because she used her position to commit the greatest and most atrocious injustices in the world. Take the case of these four boys: she abused her position, she abused her power, and now she wants to live freely and to the fullest, without paying for anything she did.”
Having submitted her asylum application, González Pedraza has two possibilities, Martí Noticias said: to be transferred to an immigration center or be released until she appears in court to defend her case. “In either case, the asylum seeker will have to appear before a judge and prove that she has legitimate grounds for persecution in Cuba. The judge can believe her and grant her asylum or he can order her expeditious deportation to Cuba,” a specialist lawyer explained to the American media.
For his part, the judge’s sponsor considers her arrest unfair. “They have done irreparable damage by including her in the database of Cuban repressors,” he told Martí Noticias. She is a Christian woman who only did her job.” Indeed.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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