Cubalex, 21 June 2024 — Sulmira Martínez Pérez could face a ten-year prison sentence, according to the provisional findings of the Prosecutor’s Office, for expressing herself on social media against the Cuban regime and advocating peaceful protest.
Prosecutor Edward Roberts Campbell has requested a combined sentence of ten years’ imprisonment for the 22-year-old, currently held in the Western Women’s Prison known as El Guatao in Havana.
Does it adhere to the principles of legality and fairness?
The legal characterisation offered by Prosecutor Edward Robert Campbell to the Chamber for Crimes against State Security of the People’s Provincial Court of Havana, in the second of his provisional conclusions presented on 24 April 2024, is incorrect. The legal grounds for this assertion are set out below:
The prosecutor has legally classified the facts described in the first of his provisional conclusions as constituting the crimes of Contempt (Articles 185.1 and 2) and Against Constitutional Order (Article 119.3 in relation to 119.1) of the Criminal Code (Law 151/2022). In this regard, he said:
“(With respect to acts committed before the entry into force of Law 151. It is integrated into the offence provided for in Article 99 of Law 62, which has the same sanctioning framework)”.
The prosecutor proposed, and the court accepted, a legal position that vio
