Rosabel Roca Sampedro has a hearing in the Houston Immigration Court on April 9
Former Cuban prosecutor Rosabel Roca Sampedro / Facebook
14ymedio, Madrid, 30 September 2024 — Despite the alert launched by various organizations and the express request to the Department of Homeland Security by three congressmen that her her request for asylum be rejected, former Cuban prosecutor Rosabel Roca Sampedro entered the United States on July 15. According to Martí Noticias, which had reported on the case last June, Roca Sampedro entered with a CBP One appointment at the border with Mexico in Brownsville, Texas.
The US media also confirmed that the former official — responsible for the sentences of up to four-and-a-half-years in prison for four protesters in Camagüey who participated in the Island-wide demonstrations on 11 July 2021, known as ’11J’ — has a preliminary hearing in the Houston Immigration Court on April 9 at 1 p.m.
Roca Sampedro, who left Cuba with her young daughter, has been living in Houston, where her older daughter also lives, at least in recent months, Martí Noticias confirmed, pointing out that the work permit she holds will allow her to benefit from the United States’ Cuban Adjustment Act, after a year and one day of being in US territory, and she will be able to obtain a residence permit.
One of the organizations that raised the alarm about the case last June was the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FHRC), which has the former prosecutor on its list of repressors. Another was Prisoners Defenders, which confirmed that Roca Sampedro prosecuted Case Number 26 of 2022, with Preparatory Phase File 32 of 2021, for “attack and contempt” against four participants in the protests of 11 July 2021.
Roca Sampedro has resided in Houston, where her eldest daughter also lives, at least in recent months
She was involved in the cases of Adrián Quesada Flores, who was 32 years old when he was arrested; Geovanis Sepúlveda Martínez (43); Lesyani Heredia Salazar (22) and Yadisley Ramírez (34). Roca Sampedro is classified by the FHRC as a “white collar” repressor, and her record includes accusations of prevarication, politically motivated persecution and crimes against humanity.
She also participated in the accusation – and subsequent sentencing of Bárbaro de Céspedes to one year and six months in prison for demonstrating on 11J. De Céspedes is the opposition member who carried a wooden cross during Good Friday 2021 in Camagüey. After his pilgrimage to the La Merced church, De Céspedes was arrested by the police and tried for violating health measures against the coronavirus. After serving his sentence after ’11J’, he was released in February.
The former prosecutor follows the path of many other officials of the regime who choose the US to settle. Last August, the former first secretary of the Communist Party in Cienfuegos, Manuel Menéndez Castellanos, arrived in Miami. Other examples of emigrated officials compiled by this newspaper are Misael Enamorado Dager, former first secretary of the Communist Party in Santiago de Cuba between 2001 and 2009, and Yurquis Companioni, a counterintelligence agent in Sancti Spíritus.
Not everyone manages to settle in the United States with impunity. Liván Fuentes Álvarez , former president of the National Assembly on the Isle of Youth, had his humanitarian parole revoked after his application was approved and he was about to travel to the US. Meanwhile, Judge Melody González , who sentenced four young people from Villa Clara to prison – without evidence and on orders from State Security, according to her own statements – for allegedly throwing Molotov cocktails at regime officials, arrived in May requesting political asylum after her humanitarian parole was denied . Currently detained at the Broward Transitional Center in Florida, the former official will have to prove, after a first failed attempt, that she is eligible for international protection.
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