Prison authorities did not let him attend his mother’s funeral, inmate denounces

Havana Cuba. – The authorities of the maximum rigor prison Kilo 8, located in the province of Camagüey, did not authorize the inmate José Luis Sánchez Fernández to be transferred to the capital to attend his mother’s funeral, according to what he himself reported by telephone last Thursday the 15th. of February.

Sánchez Fernández, 52 years old and a native of Havana, explained in his conversation that his mother, named Ohilda Fernández Hernández, had died at 6:00 in the morning of that same day. The prisoner indicated that the director of the Camagüey prison facility, Lieutenant Colonel Juan Miguel Sánchez Duarte, interviewed him in his office, but only to make it clear that he would not give him the necessary “Drive” to attend the wake (said service would take place in the Diez de Octubre municipality, in Havana).

Among the reasons given by the officer, as reported by Sánchez Fernández, the first was that there was no fuel for it due to the situation the country is going through. Secondly, the soldier alleged the amount of his sentence (27 years of deprivation of liberty) and, finally, he argued that his crime was “serious”, which, the prisoner affirms, does not correspond to reality (he was sentenced for robbery with violence).

Sánchez Fernández took the opportunity to denounce that he has been denied the change to a minimum severity regime on 10 occasions, despite the fact that of his 27-year sentence he has already served 13 years and eight months of real time, which would be equivalent to 15 years and 10 months if the reduction for good behavior is considered.

The prisoner also mentioned that his brother went to the National Directorate of Jails and Prisons, located at 15 and K, in El Vedado, Havana, but in that instance they only reiterated that there was no fuel to bring him to the capital.

Sánchez Fernández added that before being arrested he was a corpse dissector and incinerator technician, in addition to which he is also qualified as a master cook, baker and luncher.

As he explained, when raising the situation with the provincial director of Jails and Prisons, an officer who identifies himself as “Colonel Eider,” the soldier responded that this “was not his problem” but rather the prison’s.

In relation to the pass due to the death of a close relative, the “Jails and Prisons Regulations” in force on the Island establish that inmates have the right to “be taken or authorized, as appropriate, to a hospital, funeral home or home, in cases of illness.” serious injury or death of grandparents, parents, siblings, spouses, children or another family member in charge of the upbringing and education of the inmate.”

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