Murderer of Guise farmer tortured, hanged and burned sentenced to 28 years

Violence continues to escalate in Cuba. The island’s justice system has just sentenced the killer of a farmer from Guisa (Granma) who was tortured, hanged and burned in April 2023 to 28 years in prison. Only one of the four people involved in the crime has been jailed. Jail, according to Cybercuba The youth whom the police named as the prime suspect in the case, YB, was the one who saw the victim two hours before she disappeared.

“The last time I saw him was on April 6. I left him to eat for my birthday,” he says from Mexico. He regrets that the judge accepted the version that the victim was tortured after his death, so his lips, ears were cut off or he was burned could not have harmed him.

The body of Elio Suarez Martinez, 52, was found on April 28, 2023 and buried the same day. He was hiding in a farm near him in the Sierra Maestra. Beneath the charred remains was a tumor containing the remains of a product used to immobilize animals, which left the victim paralyzed.

According to YB’s version of events, the murdered farmer was his neighbor and four other neighbors, aged between 25 and 28, attacked him to rob him. Among them he recognizes Daniel MM, 27 years old, his brother and Wilbert V. All of them were tried on December 7, 2023. The sentence was given a month ago.

“They kept him alive for 16 days, so that he lost his mobility. His upper lip, one ear, his tongue…” And they took everything from him: money, clothes, food, animals, telephone and his supply book. Also.

“They hanged him with his own belt and barbed wire.” It wasn’t enough for them and “they hit him hard,” he wrote of his first contact Cybercuba.

After some time, four people who participated in the crime were arrested. One of them, who was released, Elio Suarez Martínez’s belongings were found in his house, but only the one who confessed to having executed him was sent to prison. This man is the one who has been sentenced to 28 years in prison. The rest remain free because they admit that they tortured him, but that torture would have happened after the farmer’s death, according to the judge, “he was not harmed.”

“You can no longer live in that country. What he fought so hard for, they killed him,” says YB, who assures that he was involved in the investigation because he was the prime suspect. Shortly after, four months after the crime, he left Cuba and is now in Mexico, awaiting entry into the United States.

A conflict began between Elio Martinez and his killers because he had a lot of land and his tormentors lived between one and four kilometers from his house, but they kept their animals on Elio’s land. He told them to pick up because he was going to plant pumpkins and his killers didn’t like that.

Elio Martinez was the father of two daughters, one living in Guisa and the other in Media Luna. He was the sole breadwinner in a family with many elderly people suffering from dementia and serious illnesses. They are all in the care of a sister, who also has a son in prison. “Father’s crazy, brother’s crazy, he’s got a daughter inside, in jail, a son in jail… I don’t know how he can live,” YB laments.

Such crimes are not an isolated case in Cuba. YB himself assures that death is constant in the Sierra Maestra, but not with the brutality used with Elio Martinez. In fact, the killers themselves assisted in the search for the body.

On the 12th of this month of March, a young man, Ciego de Ávila, of Jicotea, He was killed by mistake for another person. The deceased was the father of a four-month-old baby girl. After realizing his mistake, the criminal handed over to the police.

A day earlier, in the municipality of Regla in Havana, another man died after suffering multiple stab wounds inside his home. The motive for the crime was once again robbery as the victim was exchanging dollars. They took his mobile, cash and watch. Before leaving the house, the killers spread detergent on the floor to erase their footprints and make police investigations difficult. The same night they killed another youth in Regla to take his phone.

On March 10, another young man died after receiving three stab wounds in the Chicharrones neighborhood in Santiago de Cuba. Apparently, the killer had other encounters with the victim, who suffered stab wounds when he fell to the ground.

Murders due to robbery or account settlement are increasingly common in Cuba. That’s one of the reasons why people in Havana avoid going out at night and the streets seem deserted as night falls.