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CASE 12.477 MERITS (PUBLICATION) LORENZO ENRIQUE COPELLO CASTILLO ET AL. CUBA October 21, 2006
I. SUMMARY
1. On October 10, 2003, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter “the Commission,” the “Inter-American Commission,” or the “IACHR”) received a petition lodged by Messrs. Claudio Grossman, Helen Jiménez, Courtney Nogar, Laura W. Phillips, and Felipe Eduardo Sixto (hereinafter “the petitioners”). The petition alleged that the Republic of Cuba (hereinafter “Cuba” or the “State”) failed to honor its obligations under Articles 1 (Right to life, liberty, and personal security), XVIII (Right to a fair trial), XXVI (Right to due process of law) of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man[1] (hereinafter “the Declaration” or “American Declaration”) by trying and sentencing to death without due process of law, and subsequently executing, Lorenzo Enrique Copello Castillo, Bárbaro Leodán Sevilla García, and Jorge Luis Martínez Isaac (hereinafter the “alleged victims”).
2. On October 14, 2004, the Commission approved Admissibility Report No. 58/04 and concluded that the case was admissible and that it had competence to study the petition lodged by the petitioners concerning the alleged violation of Articles 1, XVIII, and XXVI of the American Declaration, in accordance with Articles 28 to 37 and 39 of the Rules of Procedure of the Commission. In the same report, the Commission decided: 1) to declare the petition admissible in relation to Articles I, XVIII, and XXVI of the American Declaration; 2) to notify the decision to the State and to the petitioners; 3) to begin the analysis of the merits of the case, and; 4) to publish the decision and include it in its Annual Report to the General Assembly of the OAS.[2]
3. The petitioners in their arguments on the merits stated that Lorenzo Enrique Copello Castillo, Bárbaro Leodán Sevilla García, and Jorge Luis Martínez Isaac were sentenced to death and shot in violation of their human rights as established in Articles I, XVIII, and XXVI of the American Declaration.
4. For its part, the State in response to the request that it should present any comments it considered relevant to the arguments on the merits by the petitioners, stated that the Inter-American Commission did not have competence, nor did the Organization of American States have the moral authority to study this or any other matter concerning Cuba.
5. The Commission concluded that the State of Cuba violated Articles I, XVIII, and XXVI of the American Declaration, to the detriment of Lorenzo Enríque Copello Castillo, Bárbaro Leodán Sevilla García, and Jorge Luis Martínez Isaac, by judging and sentencing them without observing guarantees of due legal process, and by subsequently executing them.
II. PROCESSING BY THE COMMISSION
6. On February 18, 2004, the IACHR proceeded to process petition No. 844/2003, in accordance with the provisions of the Rules of Procedure in force since May 1, 2001, and transmitted the pertinent parts of the complaint to the State, granting it a period of two months in which to lodge observations and any information relevant to the material facts of this communication. The State did not file the observations requested by the Commission.
7. On October 14, 2004, the Commission approved Admissibility Report No. 58/04.
8. On October 27, 2004, at the request of the petitioners, a hearing on this case was held during the 121st Regular Session.
9. On November 8, 2004, the Commission notified the Admissibility Report to the State and the petitioners in accordance with Article 38(2) of the Rules of Procedure, and put itself at the disposal of the parties in order to achieve a friendly settlement in accordance with Article 41 of the Rules of Procedure, and requested them to respond to this offer as soon as possible. In the same note, the Commission asked the petitioners, in accordance with Article 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure of the Commission to present their additional observations on the merits of the case within a period of two months from the date of the notification of the report.
10. On December 6, 2004, the Commission received a communication signed by the Head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington stating that the Commission had no competence to study this or any other matter concerning Cuba.
11. On the same day, December 6, 2004, the Commission received a note from the petitioners acknowledging the offer made by the Commission to put itself at the disposal of the parties in order to achieve a friendly settlement and requesting the Commission to continue processing the case in view of the fact that the State of Cuba had not responded to requests from the Commission for information.
12. On August 5, 2005, the petitioners restated the arguments presented in their petition on the merits of the case and lodged their arguments concerning reparation. This information was transmitted to the State for its observations.
13. On September 1, 2005, the IACHR received a note signed by the Head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington saying once more that the IACHR had no competence to study this subject.
14. On October 17, 2005, during the 123rd Regular Session, and at the request of the petitioners, a hearing was held on the merits of the case. The State was invited to participate in said hearing.[3] However, it did not attend.
III. POSITIONS OF THE PARTIES
A. The Petitioners
1. As to the facts
15. The petitioners allege that on April 2, 2003, eleven Cuban citizens, including the alleged victims, hijacked a ferry going from La Havana to Regla, with 40 people on board. The petitioners indicate that the intention of the hijackers was to take control of the ferry and travel with it to the United States of America. They add that when they ran out of fuel 45 kilometers from the Cuban coast, the Cuban coastguards proceeded to tow the vessel to the island. During the journey, the group maintained control of the boat.
16. The petitioners say that while they were being towed, the group of hijackers threatened to murder the passengers they were holding hostage, who included two French women tourists. They added that the situation ended without violence when the security forces encouraged the passengers to throw themselves overboard and then captured the hijackers. They state that according to an official note, the authorities reported that “all of those who had been on board were rescued and saved without so much as a shot or a scratch.”[4]
17. The petitioners point out that the hijackers, including the alleged victims, were tried by the Court for Crimes against State Security of the People’s Court of Havana. The Court had applied the specially expedited summary proceeding contemplated in Articles 479 and 480 of the Criminal Procedure Act. The petitioners add that the trials took place from April 5 to 8, 2003.
18. The petitioners state that at the end of the expedited summary trial, the alleged victims were sentenced to death for violating the “Cuban Law against Acts of Terrorism,” of December 2001. They add that said law was wrongfully applied, because for the legally defined type of offenses committed by the alleged victims, the law prescribes imprisonment, not the death penalty.
19. They add that the defense attorneys for the victims were court-appointed and that the “extremely short duration of the proceedings reveals that there was not enough time to prepare an appropriate defense,”[5] and that “the convictions do not mention arguments adduced by the defense and are repeatedly based on political arguments.”[6] According to the petitioners, these facts would constitute violations of Articles I, XVIII, and XXVI of the American Declaration.
20. According to the petitioners, the alleged victims appealed against their death sentences to the Supreme People’s Court, Cuba’s highest judicial organ. This Court, according to the petitioners, ratified the sentences in a one-day trial. The petitioners add that in keeping with current laws in Cuba, these death sentences were submitted for consideration by the Council of State, which proceeded to ratify them, condemning the alleged victims to death.
21. The petitioners also say that in the early morning of April 11, 2003, following the decision handed down by the Council of State, the sentences were carried out and the alleged victims executed.
2. As to the Law
22. With regard to the merits, the petitioners allege that the State of Cuba violated Articles I, XVII, and XXVI of the American Declaration and in this respect state the following:
a. Right to life
23. The petitioners argue that the State of Cuba violated Article I of the American Declaration because the death penalty was not applicable in these cases and was applied in violation of the right of the victims to life. They say that this recognition of the right to life is such that it forms part of the principles of jus cogens.
24. The petitioners state that the Cuban State itself voted for this right in the United Nations, specifically with reference to Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
25. They add that the Cuban State did not observe the three requirements necessary for the imposition of the death penalty established by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, that are: 1. The imposition or application of the death penalty is subject to certain procedural requirements whose compliance must be strictly observed and reviewed; 2. The application of the death penalty must be limited to the most serious common crimes not related to political offenses; and 3. Certain considerations involving the person of the defendant, which may bar the imposition or application of the death penalty, must be taken into account.[7]
26. They state that in this case, the death penalty was applied without complying with these requirements. The impartiality of the judges has been documented by the IACHR[8] and the death sentence was against Cuba’s own legislation because the crime did not qualify as “most serious”[9] given that Article 29 of the Cuban Criminal Code establishes the exceptional nature of the death penalty, reserving its application only for the most serious crimes. They state that Messrs. Copello Castillo, Sevilla García, and Martínez Isaac were sentenced to death after an expedited summary trial[10] for “the crime of possessing a weapon” in the context of seizing a ship.[11]Punishable acts of this nature were not typified amongst laws punishable by the death penalty. They add that the execution of the condemned men for the crime of terrorism in this case amounts to a direct violation of the right to life and of Cuban legislation because it does not meet the definition of a “most serious crime.”
27. Furthermore, they argue that the execution of the condemned men for the crime of terrorism amounts to an additional violation of the right to life because the Republic of Cuba had declared a de facto moratorium on executions.[12]According to the petitioners, this had created an expectation that use of the death penalty was being restricted in the spirit of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, and the American Convention on Human Rights.
b. Right to Justice
28. The petitioners argue that the State of Cuba violated Article XXVIII of the Declaration because in their expedited summary trial, the victims were not provided with the minimum judicial guarantees. In this respect the petitioners say that there was neither sufficient time nor procedural means. The executions of Messrs Copello Castillo, Sevilla García, and Martínez Isaac took place less than one week after they were accused. The petitioners claim that this amounts to a violation of Article 8(2)(c) of the Convention which states that “every person accused of a criminal offense…is entitled to adequate time and means for the preparation of his defense” and they state that the IACHR has interpreted it in this way, as has the Inter-American Court of Human Rights itself.”[13]
29. The petitioners also allege a violation of Article 8(2)(e) of the Convention, the right to be assisted by counsel.[14] This arises from the petition which states, “It is known that the other eleven accused persons did not have the opportunity to be represented by lawyers of their own choosing. Therefore, it can be assumed, that the three persons who were summarily executed were not represented during their trial in Cuba by defense counsel of their own choosing.”[15]
30. They say that the norm set out in Article 8(2) of the American Convention is a fundamental part of human rights law.
c. Right to due Process of Law
31. The petitioners argue that the State of Cuba violated Article XXVI of the Declaration because the trial of the three executed men was neither public nor impartial.
32. They say in this regard that there was no publicity concerning the trial of the three persons in question. “The international press wanted to cover the trial but the Cuban government did not allow media access.”[16]
33. They also claim that the hearing was not impartial. According to the petitioners, “the IACHR has exhaustively documented that Cuba does not possess an independent judiciary. The government controls the judiciary…The National Assembly and regional bodies select all the judges in the country and a single political party controls all those bodies,”[17] and not even lawyers are free from this control.
34. The petition also states that in this case the death penalty was “cruel, inhumane, and degrading,” particularly given that it was against the background of a victim-less crime, and those sentenced were not granted the right to spend their last moments of life with their loved ones. This is in line with the statement by the petitioners to the effect that “the IACHR has stated that arbitrary sentences are a cruel, inhumane, or degrading penalty.”[18]
35. However, they also claim that the arbitrariness of the penalty derives from the fact that Cuba’s own Penal Code of 1979 (Law 21) states that the death penalty is an exceptional one and can only be applied by a Court in cases where the most serious crimes have been committed. And they state that “possession of a weapon (in accordance with other provisions of the Cuban penal code) does not constitute a “most serious” conduct that merits the imposition of capital punishment.” The petitioners therefore conclude that the prohibition of arbitrariness enshrined in the American Declaration has been violated.
d. As to the reparations
36. The petitioners state that according to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the beneficiaries[19] are, in the first instance, the direct victims (the three men who were executed), and secondly, the members of their families, as successors and indirect victims of the violations. Their claims are based on the following assertions:
37. The violation of an international obligation, in this case protected by the American Declaration, necessarily implies the obligation to remedy[20]. This reparation is governed by the principle of Restitutio in integrum, which implies returning the situation as far as possible to its original state, and to compensate for where this is not possible. Steps should also be taken to ensure that the violation is not repeated.
38. The petitioners are of the opinion that Cuba should be declared responsible for the violation of rights protected by the American Declaration, take steps to remedy the violations and offer guarantees that the violations will not be repeated, pay fair compensation in reparation for material, moral, and psychological damage suffered by the victims, and pay the legal costs of the proceedings before the Inter-American system.
39. For the damage caused in detriment to the right to life, the petitioners say that compensation should be made under the following headings:
40. The petitioners also request that the relevant steps be taken and the guarantees extended to ensure no repetition in accordance with the different international instruments in force. They therefore request the State of Cuba to carry out a complete, impartial, and effective investigation in order to identify, try, and criminally punish those agents of the State who were responsible, both materially and intellectually, for the shooting of Lorenzo Enrique Copello Castillo, Bárbaro Leodán Sevilla García, and Jorge Luis Martínez Isaac.”[24]
41. They also request that Cuban law should recognize all inter-American standards relating to the due process of law, and in addition make all the modifications necessary to adapt domestic law accordingly, and ratify the principal international human rights instruments of which Cuba is not yet part.[25]
42. They also request that the State should pay all the legal costs incurred throughout this process before the inter-American system.[26]
B. The State
43. In the present case, Cuba has responded to requests for information and observations by the IACHR via the Cuban Interests Section in Washington. Communications from the State, received by the Commission on December 6, 2004 and September 1, 2005, state that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has no legal competence, and nor does the Organization of American States have moral authority to judge the human rights situation in Cuba.
44. The Commission observes that the deadlines established in the Rules of Procedure for the State to supply information have long since expired without Cuba disputing the allegations lodged by the petitioners in this case.
IV. ANALYSIS OF THE MERITS
A. Preliminary
45. The Commission reasserts its competence[27] to study the facts of this case. The Commission’s jurisdiction in this case derives from the OAS Charter, the Commission’s Statute, and its Rules of Procedure. In accordance with the Charter of the OAS, all member states undertake to respect the fundamental rights of individuals, which in the case of states that are not party to the Convention are those established in the American Declaration. In accordance with Article 20(a) of its Statute, the Commission is required to pay particular attention to the observance of the human rights referred to Articles I, II, III, IV, XVIII, and XXVI of the Declaration in exercising its powers in relation to countries that are not parties. In accordance with Article 49 of its Rules of Procedure, the IACHR shall receive and examine any petition that contains a denunciation of alleged violations of the human rights set forth in the American Declaration in relation to Member States that are not parties to the American Convention on Human Rights (hereinafter, “Convention” or “American Convention”).
46. Cuba deposited its instrument of ratification of the Charter of the OAS on July 16, 1952, and since that time has been a State Party to the Organization of American States.
47. By virtue of the foregoing, the IACHR decided, in its Admissibility Report No. 58/04, that it has competence to examine the material facts of this case.
B. Application and interpretation of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man
48. The petitioners in the present case allege that the State of Cuba is responsible for the violation of the rights enshrined in Articles I, XVIII, and XXVI of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man to the detriment of Lorenzo Enrique Copello Castillo, Bárbaro Leodán Sevilla García, and Jorge Luis Martínez Isaac.
49. As the Commission has stated on many occasions, the American Declaration is a source of international juridical obligation for all member states of the Organization of American States, including Cuba. Furthermore, the Commission is empowered by Article 20 of its Statute, and by Articles 49 and 50 of its Rules and Procedures, to receive and examine any petition that contains a denunciation of alleged violations of human rights set forth in the American Declaration, in relation to Member States of the OAS that are not parties to the American Convention.[28]
50. In accordance with the jurisprudence of the inter-American human rights system, the provisions of its guiding instruments including the American Declaration should be interpreted and applied in the light of the evolution experienced in the field of international human rights law, with due regard to other relevant rules of international law applicable to member states against which complaints of violations of the Declaration are properly lodged.[29]
51. In particular, the bodies of the inter-American system have previously maintained that developments in the corpus of international human rights law relevant to interpreting and applying the American Declaration may in turn be drawn from the provisions of other prevailing international and regional human rights instruments.[30] This includes in particular the American Convention on Human Rights which, in many instances, may be considered to represent an authoritative expression of the fundamental principles set forth in the American Declaration[31] and its respective protocols such as the protocol relating to the abolition of the death penalty.[32] Similarly, relevant evolution has resulted from the provisions of other multilateral treaties approved both within and outside the framework of the inter-American system, including the Geneva Conventions of 1949[33] and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.[34]
52. In order to give an opinion on the present case, the Commission in as far as it is appropriate, will interpret and apply the provisions of the American Declaration in the light of the latest developments in the field of international human rights law, as reflected in the treaties, current practice, and other relevant sources of international law.
53. Consequently, the Commission will take into consideration and apply the pertinent provisions of the American Declaration in order to decide if the State of Cuba has violated the rights set out in Articles I (Right to life, liberty and personal security), XVIII (Right to a fair trial), and XXVI (Right to due process of law) of the American Declaration, in accordance with Report Nº 58/04
C. The facts
54. The Commission observes that in spite of its repeated requests, to date the State has provided no observation, information, or evidence concerning the allegations made by the petitioners. The Commission also notes that the facts alleged by the petitioners describe in specific detail the situation of the alleged victims and that these are corroborated by evidence documented in other sources.
55. On the basis of these considerations and taking into account the absence of convincing evidence that leads to a different conclusion, the Commission decides to apply Article 39 of its Rules of Procedure, which states:
The facts alleged in the petition, the pertinent parts of which have been transmitted to the State in question, shall be presumed to be true if the State has not provided responsive information during the maximum period set by the Commission under the provisions of Article 38 of these Rules of Procedure, as long as other evidence does not lead to a different conclusion.
56. Without prejudice to the foregoing, for its examination, the Commission considered information from public statements by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cuba and from the 11/2003 judgment of the People’s Provincial Court of the City of Havana on April 8, 2003.
57. Therefore, the Commission assumes that the facts concerning the alleged victims described in the foregoing paragraphs are correct.
1. Events leading to the arrest of Lorenzo Enrique Copello Castillo, Bárbaro Leodán Sevilla García, and Jorge Luis Martínez Isaac
58. Lorenzo Enrique Copello Castillo, Bárbaro Leodán Sevilla García, and Jorge Luis Martínez Isaac, all of them Cuban citizens, were accused of taking part on April 2, 2003, along with eight other people,[35] in the hijacking of a ferry making the crossing between Havana and the area of Casablanca and Regla, with approximately 40 persons on board.[36] The intention of the hijackers was to take the ferry to the coast of Florida, United States of America.
59. At dawn on April 2, 2003, the hijackers took control of the vessel a short while after having boarded her, threatening the passengers and the crew with knives and firearms. At midday on April 2, and at a distance of some 45 kilometers from Cuba, the ferry ran out of fuel. The hijackers communicated with the Cuban authorities, demanded a supply of fuel, and threatened to throw overboard the three French hostages. The authorities tried to persuade the hijackers to desist from this attempt because the type of vessel was not suitable for travel on the high seas. At around three in the afternoon, the hijackers agreed to be towed towards the port of Mariel against a promise that they would be given fuel. During the return journey, they kept control of the vessel and threatened to kill the passengers they were holding as hostages. In port, the Cuban security forces encouraged the passengers to jump into the water and then arrested all those who had taken part in the hijacking, with no one being wounded or injured. The hijacking came to an end at approximately 4 pm on April 2, 2003.[37]
2. Judgment
60. On April 5, 2003, the persons who took part in the hijacking of the ferry were brought before the Court for Crimes against State Security of the People’s Provincial Court[38] of the City of Havana.
61. All those who had taken part in the hijacking were accused by the Prosecutor of committing terrorist acts as set out in the Law against Terrorist Acts[39], of December 2001.
62. The People’s Provincial Court applied the proceeding of expedited summary trial[40], set forth in Articles 479 and 480 of the Law of Criminal Procedure, which states that in exceptional cases the Attorney General may advise the President of the People’s Supreme Court that the proceeding of expedited summary trial may be used to judge certain criminal acts.
Expedited Summary Trial
Article 479: In a case where exceptional circumstances apply, the Attorney General may influence the President of the People’s Supreme Court and decide that specific criminal acts within the competence of any of the Courts of justice should be tried by expedited summary trial, except where these acts are within the competence of the People’s Municipal Courts.
Article 480: In the expedited summary trial, the terms established by this Law for processing prior formalities, the oral hearing and the remedies, are reduced to the extent considered necessary by the competent Court.[41]
63. During the trial before the People’s Provincial Court, the accused had defending counsel who had been appointed by the court.[42]
64. In its judgment[43] of April 8, 2003, the People’s Provincial Court states that the hearing was oral, public, and summary. The judgment regards as proven that the eleven accused, “having agreed amongst themselves, and encouraged by the Cuban Adjustment Act as well as by earlier cases of airplane hijacking, conceived the idea to flee illegally from Cuba by hijacking one of the passenger ferries that cross the Havana Bay between the Muelle de Luz, Casablanca, and Regla [.][44] The judgment goes on to describe the events that took place on April 3, 2003, and the records of the accused.
65. With regard to Lorenzo Enrique Copello Castillo, Bárbaro Leodán Sevilla García, and Jorge Luis Martínez Isaac, the judgment describes the following records:[45]
That the accused LORENZO ENRIQUE COPELLO CASTILLO, was sentenced previously in cases three hundred and sixty-four of one thousand nine hundred and ninety-four, and one hundred and eleven of one thousand nine hundred and ninety-five, both brought before the People’s Municipal Court of Central Havana, for the crime of fraud, and fined 200 quotas of one peso each, and one year of imprisonment, and very bad social conduct has been identified on twenty-nine occasions, almost always for pestering tourists.
That the accused BÁRBARO LEODÁN SEVILLA GARCÍA, was sentenced in Case number sixty-six of one thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight at the People’s Provincial Court of the city of Las Tunas, for the crime of house breaking, to 2 years imprisonment, his conduct continues to be very anti-social in his neighborhood, he prides himself on being good-looking, disturbs the peace, and spends time with antisocial elements.
That the accused JORGE LUIS MARTINEZ ISAAC, was sentenced previously in Cases five thousand five hundred and ninety-eight of one thousand nine hundred and eighty-eight; two hundred and eight of one thousand nine hundred and ninety-four, and nine hundred and twenty of two thousand and one at the People’s Provincial Court of the City of Havana and the People’s Municipalities of Melena del Sur in Old Havana, for the crimes of involuntary manslaughter, eluding arrest, and threats, to eight years and six months respectively in prison and fined three hundred quotas of two pesos each for normal behavior in society.”
66. The judgment states that in order to establish the facts proven it relied on “statements by the accused in which they described the events; statements from witnesses who were in the hijacked vessel and recounted their experiences on board the boat and the threats to which they were subjected by some of those charged; a statement from the witness who described how he recovered one weapon from under the water and another who described one confrontation he had had with one of the accused and whom he pushed into the water. Evidence was heard from a specialist in Legal Medicine, Ernesto Pérez González, who described the states of mind of COPELLO CASTILLO, SEVILLA GARCIA and MARTINEZ ISAAC; evidence was also given by specialists in finger prints; graphology; firearm residues on hands, blood, hairs, and textile micro-fibers, writing, and judicial ballistics experts. Documentary evidence came from complementary investigation of the accused, certificates of criminal records, amongst others.”[46]
67. The judgment establishes that the facts declared proven constitute a crime under the law against terrorist acts, set forth and sanctioned in Articles 10, 11(c), 14(1), and 16(1)(a) “is established when the perpetrators, acting in a group, one of them with a pistol which he shoots twice, seize a group of persons and hold them hostage, threatening them with shooting them to death, and manage to take control of a passenger vessel in order to take themselves to the United States of America. The crime of carrying arms is not included because the use of the pistol and knives was the means to carrying out the terrorist action.”[47] Articles 10, 11(c), 14(1), and 16(1) of the law against terrorist acts state:
Article 10: Any person who makes, facilitates, sells, transports, remits, brings into the country or has in his possession, in what ever form or place, arms, munitions or materials, inflammable, asphyxiant, or toxic substances or instruments, plastic explosives or of any other class or nature, or chemical or biological agents, or whatever other element from the study, design, or combination of which it is possible to derive products so described, or any other similar substance or explosive or lethal device, shall be punished by from ten to thirty years imprisonment, life imprisonment, or death.
Article 11: The same sanction shall apply to any person who delivers, places, throws, disseminates, detonates, or uses in any other way, an explosive or lethal device, or any other means or substance described in Article 10, against c) a public transport network or any of its components;
Article 14(1): Any person who seizes another person, or holds him against his will, and threatens him with death, wounding or imprisonment, in order to force a State, an inter-governmental organization, an individual or a legal entity, or group of persons, to act or fail to act, as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of a hostage, shall be punished by from ten to twenty years’ imprisonment.
Article 16(1): The punishment of from ten to thirty years’ imprisonment for any person who: a) seizes a boat or exercises control over it by means of violence, threat of violence or any other form of intimidation;
68. All the accused were described in the judgment as perpetrators, liable to the aggravating circumstances contemplated in Article 53(a), (c), (f), (h), and (o) because the judgment states that “it is certain that the acts were committed by a group of eleven persons who were well organized in themselves, they caused serious economic consequences because of the time that the vessel was out of service, to commit the crime they used a pistol which they fired and might therefore have caused the death or injury of other persons, they took advantage of the cover of night and the small numbers of people crossing at that time, and they used French tourists as hostages, although tourism is known to be a high priority activity for Cuba[.][48] The relevant clauses of Article 53 of the Penal Codes state:
Article 53: The following can be aggravating circumstances: a) to commit the act as part of a group made up of three or more persons; c) by the offense, to cause serious consequences; f) to commit the act in such a way as to cause public danger; h) to commit the act at night, or in a deserted place, or in a place with little public transit or where it is dark, having chosen these circumstances on purpose and exploiting them; o) to commit the act against persons or goods connected with activities that are prioritized for the economic and social development of the country.
69. In addition, because several aggravating circumstances coincided, all the accused were subjected to the extraordinary aggravating circumstance defined in Article 53(2) of the Penal Code that states:
Article 53(2): When several aggravating circumstances exist, or when one of them is very strongly manifest, the court may increase by up to half the maximum punishment envisaged for the crime.
70. The judgment states that criminal responsibility in this case implies civil responsibility in accordance with Article 70 of the Penal Code.
71. With regard to matching the punishable act to the punishment, the following is stated in the final (fifth) “Whereas” clause of the judgment:
“In order to ensure the appropriate scale of the punishment to be imposed, the Court must take account of the provisions of Articles twenty-seven[49] and forty-seven[50] of the Penal Code; the extreme dangerousness of the events, not just in the way they were executed, that endangered the lives of a number of people who were merely traveling in that passenger boat or were returning to their homes, but also in the means they employed by using knives and firearms which they fired twice in order to scare their hostages even more. The above combines with their personal characteristics, being people who live like social parasites and engage in no useful activity, with criminal records as in the case of COPELLO CASTILLO and MARTINEZ ISAAC, who has two or more different kinds, to whom applies the special rule of aggravation as described in Article fifty-five paragraphs one and three, sub-paragraph h) of the Penal Code; and SEVILLA GARCIA and THOMAS GONZALES who each have a different category of criminal record, and to whom can be applied the rule established in the abovementioned Article fifty-five, paragraphs one and three, sub-paragraph c) of the substantive law. In order to decide on the appropriate punishment, the Court had not only to evaluate the circumstances described above, but also to take into account that the Cuban people have constantly been the victims of many acts of terrorism causing serious human and material damage, as a result of which Cubans are maligned throughout the world, and this imposes on us the obligation to act with the strictest rigor, […] In view of the fact that some conduct and behavior damages society in such a way that in exceptional circumstances it is necessary for the perpetrators to be punished most severely for it, in order to purge surrounding society, as applies in the case of the accused COPELLO CASTILLO, SEVILLA GARCIA, and MARTINEZ ISAAC, who were the leaders and principal perpetrators of this crime, and who, in the opinion of this Court, should be sentenced to the maximum penalty.”
72. The judgment goes on to state: WE RULE: to punish LORENZO ENRIQUE COPELLO CASTILLO, BARBARO LEODAN SEVILLA GARCIA AND JORGE LUIS MARTINEZ ISAAC, perpetrators of the crime of ACTS OF TERRORISM, with DEATH.”[51]
73. The judgment ordered the resolution to be notified to the parties and copy to be sent to the Provincial Department of Prisons of the Ministry of the Interior. Finally, it states “The remedies of appeal and cassation respectively can be brought against this judgment, within eight hours from the moment of its notification because it is an expedited summary proceeding. And in the case of those sentenced to death, the appeal is considered lodged.”
74. Copello Castillo, Sevilla García, and Martínez Isaac appealed the sentence of the death penalty in the People’s Supreme Court,[52] which ratified the penalty.
75. Subsequently, the deat |
