Trial postponed against Cuban influencer Anna Bensi and her mother with no new date set
The trial against Anna Sofía Benítez and her mother was postponed without a date defined. The complaining police officer demands a public apology video in exchange.
Trial without date following postponement due to judge's "personal problems"
Cuban influencer and activist Anna Sofía Benítez, known on social media as Anna Bensi, reported this Saturday that the trial against her and her mother, Caridad Silvente, was postponed without a new date being communicated to them. According to martinoticias.com, both face charges for the alleged crime against the personal and family privacy of a police officer.
"They had set a trial date for the 17th of this month, but a few days before they tell us the trial is postponed due to personal problems of the judge and to this day there is still no date," Benítez stated in a video published on her Facebook profile.
The police officer demands public apology; his lawyer seeks prison sentence
Subofficial Yoel Leodán Rabaza Ramos, the officer involved in the case, is maintaining as a condition for reaching an agreement that the two women record and broadcast a video retracting themselves publicly. "The police officer involved in the case is asking my mother and me to make a public apology video, a video retracting ourselves and upload it to social media so he can recover his honour," Benítez stated.
However, the officer's lawyer is requesting a different sentence from the court: two years of restricted freedom for each of the accused.
The origin: a State Security summons recorded on video
The facts that triggered the legal proceedings date back to 10 March, when Rabaza Ramos appeared at the home of both women in Alamar, east of Havana, to deliver them a summons from State Security. Anna Bensi and her mother decided to record and publish the moment on social media as a protective measure. The publication was accompanied by the hashtag #Nohaydelito.
The prosecution closed the case on 13 April, but the police officer filed a complaint on 6 July, whereupon the file was reopened. Since 25 April, both have been under house arrest with a prohibition from leaving Cuba.
Cuba-Demanda denounces procedural irregularities
The organisation Cuba-Demanda, which provides legal advice to the accused from exile, has noted that the court is ignoring a mechanism that allows for a conciliation act prior to oral trial. Santiago Alpízar, lawyer and leader of Cuba-Demanda, explained in an interview with Martí Noticias on 18 August that the police officer's complaint itself tacitly contains a request for conciliation.
"If we read the complaint filed by the police officer, tacitly this person, the alleged injured party, is asking for a conciliation act because in one part of his complaint he says he would be satisfied if Anna Bensi made a public video retracting from the action she had taken. And the court has not taken this into account," Alpízar stated.
Benítez reaffirms her position: "I would do it again"
In the video published this Saturday, Anna Bensi reiterated her decision to continue expressing herself on social media and defended the recording of 10 March as a legitimate exercise. "If I were given the opportunity to turn back time already knowing all the repression that would fall on me, knowing everything I was going to lose, believe me I would do it again," she stated.
The young activist also clarified that her position is not political in the professional sense. "Cuba cannot be freed through a screen, but this is my way of not standing idle before what I experience," she said in concluding the video.
Source: Google News CU — Crime