One of Those Arrested for the Protests in Nuevitas, Cuba is Accused of Sabotage

Neither his family nor his attorney have been in communication with Jimmy Johnson Agosto since his arrest on September 6. (Justicia 11J)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 13 September 2022 — With an anonymous phone call, and the possession of pellets and a slingshot as evidence, Jimmy Johnson Agosto, who was arrested last week in Nuevitas, Camagüey for participating in last month’s protests, is accused of sabotage, a crime which is considered aggravated for being against national security.

The 26-year-old’s family confirmed that State Security charged Agosto with this crime for allegedly throwing rocks at a generator there, using [as evidence] pellets that were seized during a search of his home.

“They say what they used on the generator were grinding balls (cement pellets), and rocks like those they found in Jimmy’s house; but there in Nuevitas everyone has that. Even I had them,” the young man’s mother, Isabel Cristina Agosto Grimal, told CiberCuba.

Johnson Agosto was arrested on September 6th when he was returning from an electroencephalogram (EEG) following an episode of epilepsy. At the time, Justicia 11J stated that the arrest happened following an anonymous phone call, which accused him of damaging a store window during the protests in Nuevitas at the end of August.

Hours later, instead of charging him with destruction of property, they charged him with sabotage and put him in pretrial detention as a precautionary measure.

In a public statement on social media, journalist Annarella O’Mahony stated that the young man’s arrest might be the regime retaliating against her as he is her cousin. “It was a matter of time, and the rope snapped on you, a forgotten kid from the neighborhood, a boy with a huge heart. I have not been able to write you a single line, my good child, but you may live convinced that I am moving heaven and earth for you,” she wrote in a note shared on September 8th.

His family stated that they still have not been able to communicate with him directly since he was arrested and taken to the police station in Nuevitas; he was later transferred to the State Security prison in Camagüey, where he was interrogated for three days without access to an attorney, without changing his clothes, and without the medication he needs to control his epilepsy.

O’Mahony denounced that the Constitution of the Republic had been violated by denying the young detainee due process, “as they usually do with all citizens and political prisoners.”

On Thursday, Prisoners Defenders (PD) reported that in Cuba there are 1,016 political prisoners, 43 arrested in September alone and 904 for protesting on July 11th, 2021.

After the protests in Nuevitas, the largest since July 11, 2021 (11J), there have been hundreds of arrests, including adults and minors “savagely” beaten by security forces, alerted the organization

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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