The suspect was arrested in Remedios with a knife and the victim’s service pistol, allegedly used to commit the crime.
14ymedio, Havana, September 21, 2025 — The Cuban police have captured in record time the alleged murderer of Captain Leonel Mesa Rodríguez, chief of sector in Caibarién, Villa Clara, who was found dead on a road on Friday morning. The arrest occurred just one day after the crime, at 4:45 pm on Saturday in the city of Remedios, as confirmed by the Ministry of the Interior in a post on social networks. It was also reported that the detainee was carrying the officer’s pistol and a knife, both used in the murder.
The authorities did not give details about the detainee’s identity. Initially it was said that he was a “butcher and trafficker of cattle,” which generated suspicion among citizens. “They don’t give his name and surname like they usually do, it’s very strange,” one reader wrote in the comments at the foot of the official post on Facebook. Other users expressed their bewilderment at the speed of the process: “How fast! And for the ordinary Cuban they spend years, and nothing.”
Many of the comments called for a severe penalty or even capital punishment for the aggressor, an expectation that the authorities have shown themselves willing to meet. “The detainee will be subjected to the appropriate criminal proceedings, with the rigor established by revolutionary justice and according to the magnitude and gravity of the act committed,” said the ministry in its official note.
The rapid and severe justice for the murderer contrasts with the slowness and indifference of the authorities when confronting less conspicuous crimes against ordinary citizens. The disparity did not go unnoticed: “I am shocked to see how quickly they arrested this guy when there are other crimes that are just as cruel that are still unresolved.” “What a surprise!” another internet user mocked.
The death of the captain has been an opportunity for the regime to close ranks around its police forces
The death of the captain has been an opportunity for the regime to close ranks around its police forces and send a message of unity and strength. Mesa’s coffin, aboard a military vehicle, travelled the streets of his hometown, Taguasco (Sancti Spíritus) with a guard of honor, in a solemn ceremony that is interpreted as a warning to the internal enemy.
Numerous photos of the funeral circulated on social media. A Cuban flag was draped on the coffin, and each floral offering had the name of someone with ties to Army General Raúl Castro and President Miguel Díaz-Canel.
Senior officials from the Communist Party of Villa Clara and Sancti Spíritus, as well as from the Ministry of the Interior, also attended the funeral.
The official spokesman Henry Omar Perez, of Villa Clara, who has been one of the most active in disseminating information about the murdered policeman, as well as one of the most “combative” in his messages, described Mesa as a “colossus” of public order, a man who “day and night traveled to the most remote parts of the city of Caibarién in the effort to effectively fulfill the missions assigned to him.”
Mesa, who joined the Ministry of the Interior in 2004, was recognized with multiple distinctions; 12 medals were displayed at the funeral. Among them were the “Internationalist Fighter in Ethiopia” and more recently, the “Praise of Virtue,” awarded last June. At 62, he was still patroling his assigned area without relief, the official press points out. According to Colonel Eddy Sierra Arias, head of the General Directorate of the National Revolutionary Police Force, Mesa was an “example of values, commitment, sense of belonging, hours of wakefulness and the tireless fight against crime.”
“There is no doubt: if he were not a police officer, he would not have moved a finger,” said a reader in the face of the flood of praise that officialdom has dedicated to the captain. Just hours after the crime, the official narrative was already clear: it was a “vile act, an infamous outrage,” as Henry Omar Perez, known for having access to insider information from the police, wrote in a second publication, where he described the killer as “a coward unable to face the greatness of Leonel.”
However, unofficial reports have also emerged that offer different nuances and refer to him with the nickname “Quick Lime,” alluding to his alleged abusive methods as head of sector.
Leonel Mesa Rodríguez was found on the morning of Friday “with six stab wounds and a shot in the head,” allegedly with his own firearm, at the Popular Council La Reforma of the municipality of Caibarién. Videos circulating on social media showed his body lying on the road, while several officers diverted traffic.
Within a few hours, his death generated an avalanche of reactions between those who ask for a tough hand on the aggressor and those who fear that the murder of a police officer will return Cuba to the dark times of the executions. The tension of the case is concentrated in a sentence by Raúl Castro that supporters of the regime have revived on social networks: “He who kills by the sword, dies by the sword.”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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