HAVANA (AP) — Non-governmental organizations monitoring Cuban prisons demanded an investigation Tuesday into the death of a man imprisoned since 2021 after being arrested for participating in historic protests against shortages and blackouts.
Authorities say 29-year-old Manuel de Jesús Guillén Esplugas committed suicide in prison. However, relatives claim he succumbed to injuries sustained during a failed escape attempt at Combinado del Este prison in Havana, where he was serving a six-year sentence.
Guillén, a member of an opposition group called the Patriotic Union of Cuba, died on Saturday and his remains were returned to his family over the weekend.
“What we were able to find out, through various sources, is that Manuel was trying to escape from prison, and was caught in the act,” said Camila Rodríguez, representative of Justicia 11J, an NGO that keeps track of the situation of detainees in Cuba. “We will never know for sure what happened, unless they let us enter the prison and interview and reconstruct the events independently," she added.
Cuban authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
On July 11, 2021, thousands of Cubans took to the streets to protest widespread power outages and shortages amid a severe economic crisis. The government’s crackdown on demonstrators, which included arrests and detentions, sparked international criticism, while Cuban officials blamed U.S. sanctions and a media campaign for the unrest.
In January 2022, Cuba's Attorney General’s Office reported that 790 people were being investigated and prosecuted in connection with the protests for crimes ranging from disorder or sabotage to vandalism or attacks.
Guillén was among those arrested.
Justicia 11J says Guillén's is the the third confirmed death of a prisoner sentenced for the July 2021 protests, and that over 550 individuals are still incarcerated in relation to the demonstrations.
In a live broadcast Tuesday from his Facebook account, Yan Franco Esplugas, a cousin of Guillén, insisted on the murder version.
“They beat him to death,” Franco said through tears. “They killed him in prison, stop lying and deceiving people by saying that he hanged himself.”
A Justice 11J report published in April revealed that Guillén himself had disclosed to the Mexico-based Cuban Prison Documentation Center the dire conditions of his imprisonment. He described being incarcerated alongside violent common criminals, enduring infestations of bed bugs and severe food shortages.
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