A month after the body of Eudis Yanyel Bueno Bec , a three-year-old boy living in the Havana municipality of Guanabacoa, was found lifeless inside a disused refrigerator, the case has taken an unexpected turn with the release of the alleged suspects responsible for the incident. Given the silence of the Police, the minor’s family insists that there are still many questions to be answered.
“No authority has come to the neighborhood to say whether the investigation is continuing or not,” a close relative of the victim, a resident of the La Choricera neighborhood, where the body was found, tells 14ymedio . However, he alleges, “the suspects are free, when they should be detained until the case is closed.”
After the discovery of Bueno Bec’s body, the Police arrested the person who found the body in his backyard. He is known in the neighborhood as El Guajiro (the Peasant) – whom this newspaper’s source calls Pedritín – and his two children, identified as Los Jimaguas (the Twins).
“One of those involved,” says the relative interviewed by this newspaper, “was talking to a nephew of the minor’s parents. The man admitted that El Guajiro’s young granddaughter notified her grandfather at 12 at night that the body was in the refrigerator. The grandfather got up, opened the device and closed it again. They say he got nervous.”
El Guajiro did not know how to break the news to Bueno Bec’s family and consulted with one of his sons – the girl’s father – as to what to do. They agreed to “wait until morning” and, at 7, they gave notice. “They had been aware for hours that the child was dead and they did nothing”, says the relative interviewed by 14ymedio.
When Bueno Bec’s father arrived, the refrigerator was still closed.
“The suspects deny it, but the family thinks it was a cover-up crime,” he adds. After several disagreements, El Guajiro accused the victim’s father of “threatening” him, and although he did not present “the testimony of any witnesses,” the family member insists, “now the child’s father must go to the police station every Tuesday and Thursday, to sign an act”.
“The family thinks it is a murder, although it cannot be stated with certainty. Although these people’s duty was to notify them at any time” the source interviewed by this newspaper states bluntly. Both parents are “pained and dissatisfied” due to the lack of attention from the authorities. Meanwhile, he adds, El Guajiro and Los Jimaguas “pass by the front of the house and can’t do anything to them,” he laments. “He died, we buried him and it’s as if nothing had happened.”
The authorities took their time to give an official version of what happened. When the news was already circulating in several independent media, the Havana Citizen Portal published a note in which it offered details of the event and warned that “the specialized authorities are working until they reach the truth of all the reasons surrounding this event”.
“It was the same man who lives in that house who notified the family that he was there, it was not the Police,” a nearby resident told this newspaper
Bueno Bec had disappeared on a Thursday and was found on Saturday. The Police had come “with dogs” the day before, after the family reported the child missing, several residents of the area then told 14ymedio .
“It was the same man who lives in that house who notified the family that the child’s body was there, it was not the Police,” a nearby resident told this newspaper. “Even with the dogs, the police did not find the child.” According to the note, the minor, who died of “asphyxiation”, “had not been molested or abused”.
For his part, the official spokesperson El Necio is confident that Bueno Bec was playing “hide and seek” with other children his age when he hid in the refrigerator. “This refrigerator is one of the old ones, which has the lock on the outside, they left him locked there for several hours, which caused his death,” he said, suggesting that one of the other children might have closed the device.
The boy’s wake, which took place the same day he was found, brought together dozens of relatives and neighbors from the area, one of the most humble and precarious in the Cuban capital.
Translated by Norma Whiting
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