Spanish prosecutor recommends dismissal of lawsuit by Oswaldo Payá family against Cuban security

Posted on Thursday, 09.12.13

Spanish prosecutor recommends dismissal of lawsuit by Oswaldo Payá
family against Cuban security
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
JTAMAYO@ELNUEVOHERALD.COM

A Spanish prosecutor Wednesday recommended dismissing the lawsuit
against Cuban security officials filed by the family of dissident
Oswaldo Payá, arguing that Spain's government already has accepted the
Havana version of Payá's death as the result of a car accident.

The Madrid lawyer handling the suit, Francisco Andújar, said he had not
yet seen the prosecution statement but added that the judge considering
the lawsuit is not bound by the recommendation.

"In the first step, the judge receives the complaint and passes it to
the (prosecution) so that it can give its opinion on whatever it
considers necessary," he told el Nuevo Herald. "Afterward, the judge
makes a ruling." There is no time limit on the judge.

Payá's brother Carlos, a doctor who lives in Madrid, added that the
prosecutor's recommendation was "just a first step in something that we
must take step by step."

Oswaldo Payá's widow and daughter filed the lawsuit last month in a
Spanish court alleging that Cuban security agents rammed the car in
which Payá, a Spanish citizen, and fellow dissident Harold Cepero were
traveling and caused their deaths in eastern Cuba last summer.

Cuba's official version is that Angel Carromero, a Spanish politician
who was driving the car, caused the deaths when he lost control of the
vehicle and crashed into a tree. Carromero, who also claims his vehicle
was rammed, is serving his four-year sentence for vehicular murder in
Madrid, wearing an ankle monitor.

National Prosecutor Teresa Sandoval, in a statement made public
Wednesday, essentially argued that the Spanish government had already
accepted the ruling of the Cuban court that Payá's death was an accident
caused by Carromero.

Since the bilateral agreement under which Carromero was allowed to serve
his sentence in Spain does not apply to political crimes, she wrote,
that rules out "the existence of a murder committed as a consequence of
a persecution … based on political motives."

"The existence of an investigation of the facts can hardly be questioned
… when the government of Spain has recognized the validity and efficacy
of the sentence and thereby the penal proceedings before the Cuban
justice system," Sandoval added.

She also noted that Carromero has a long list of driving infractions
that cost him his license, and that the crash, as described by the Cuban
court, also would have amounted to a criminal violation under Spanish law.

Spanish courts lack the jurisdiction to initiate a new investigation,
she added, "because it could go against the general principles of
international penal rights with regards to the location of the events."

Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzón indicted former Chilean dictator Augusto
Pinochet in 1998 for "crimes against humanity" committed in the Latin
American nation. He was fired and convicted last year on charges of
overstepping his jurisdiction in a 2008 probe of right-wing atrocities
committed during and after the Spanish civil war of 1936-1939, despite a
1977 amnesty.

The Payá family lawsuit submitted to National Court Judge Eloy Velasco
requested an investigation of two Cuban State Security officials,
identified only as Col. Llanes and Lt. Col. Aguilas, who were in charge
of monitoring the dissident.

An independent investigation of the case is needed as "an elemental
question of justice," the suit argued.

State Security agents are known to have followed Payá almost everywhere
he went, and he had publicly complained that another car rammed his
vehicle early last year and that the lug nuts on his vehicle had been
loosened some years back.

Source: "Spanish prosecutor recommends dismissal of lawsuit by Oswaldo
Payá family against Cuban security - Miami-Dade - MiamiHerald.com" -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/09/12/3620760/spanish-prosecutor-recommends.html