The action, called a querella, is directed against two Cuban military
officials. Paya’s Spanish citizenship enables it to be presented in Spanish court. They ask the court to take testimony from themselves,
Carromero, Modig, four witnesses in Cuba, associates of Paya in Spain, and
finally from Spanish and Swedish party activists whom they say received messages
from Carromero and Modig after the crash.
It is not clear whether the matter will
proceed; this Radio Marti report says that the court has handed the matter to
a prosecutor, “who will decide whether or not the querella is to be admitted.”
The querella
alleges that the Cuban trial that found Carromero guilty of vehicular
manslaughter was a “farce” intended to paint the crash as an accident caused by
negligence on Carromero’s part. The
government’s purpose, it charges, was “to do away with the Christian Liberation
Movement and also to eliminate the possibility that any dissident movement
would receive aid from abroad, which would cause the disappearance of any
current or future ideological threat to the dictatorial regime that governs the
island.” (BBC, El Mundo)
Carromero was convicted in criminal court in
Bayamo last October. (The sentencia from this Cuban trial is
described here and here; the full document doesn’t
seem to be on the web.) He returned to Spain last December under a
Cuban-Spanish agreement that allows convicts to serve out their sentence in
their home country. Carromero remained silent
for months. Finally in March, with
Paya’s associates chiding him for remaining silent, he gave statements to the Washington Post editorial page in
which he alleged for the first time that a government car had driven him off
the road. He stayed away from Spanish
media.
Modig has consistently said that he was
asleep and remembers nothing about the crash.
Carromero is now speaking out, accusing the Cuban government of killing
Paya and Cepero. He began with this interview with El Mundo, saying that “I am just one
more victim of the Paya case,” which takes some considerable cheek considering
that he is alive and two Cubans are dead.
He said that Modig “has declared that he remembers nothing” ever since
they were in the hospital together in Bayamo.
He mentions being sedated in the Bayamo hospital, but he does not make
reference, as he did according to numerous press accounts last January, to having to
recompose his memories because of long-lasting memory-inhibiting drugs
allegedly administered to him in Cuba. He
also repeats that when he asked Paya about the car that was behind them, Paya
told him it was “de la comunista” and
he should ignore it. (If anyone knows
what that means, or has ever heard a Cuban use that phrase, I’m all ears.)
When he spoke later to the Herald, Carromero added that in the Bayamo
hospital, he gave a statement to the effect that he was driven off the road,
and signed that statement, only to be pressed into changing it by officials who
slapped him and told him that he risked a long time in jail if he didn’t change
his story.
In this interview on Spanish television, Carromero says that
various cars had followed his car, when one finally drove it off the road when
he was going about 60 kilometers per hour.
Carromero said he is “sure” that Paya and Cepero were alive after the
accident, although he doesn’t seem to have said in any interview that he saw
them alive.
The basis seems to be his statement to El
Mundo that a priest and nurses told him that Cepero and Paya were both
“admitted” to the hospital in Bayamo.
In this interview (with audio), Carromero starts by asking listeners “to
realize that everything that happened, happened to a young person of 26 years
of age.” He said that he knows Paya was
alive because a priest called the hospital from
Madrid to say that all four in the car “were in the hospital.”
In an interview with a Spanish radio station,
Paya’s brother Carlos claims that Modig’s statement that he remembers
nothing is “a lie.” Asked why Modig would
lie, Paya said, “He has his reasons.” He
said he has talked with Modig, and Modig’s memory is “very selective.” Paya says that Modig sent a text in Swedish
after the accident saying, “literally, Angel tells me that a car drove us off
the road.”
There’s much more if you care to sift through the statements of
Carromero, his friends, and Paya’s family and associates.
Whom to believe?
Like me, you may be recalling the great movie about reasonable doubt, 12 Angry Men, that
boiled down to Henry Fonda peppering his fellow jurors with the question,
“Isn’t it possible?”
Isn’t it possible that Cuban government operatives drove Carromero off
the road, intentionally or because someone who was assigned to follow got too
close? Yes, it is.
It’s also possible that a Swedish Christian Democrats wanted to help
Cuban dissidents by sending Modig, who speaks no Spanish; they needed a Spanish
speaker, and to their great misfortune they got the jejune Carromero, whose
driver’s license was in the process of being revoked and who, at the wheel in a grueling, day-long
drive across Cuba, made a mistake that cost two dissidents their lives.
To date the Paya family’s case has not been strong, suffering from
piecemeal presentation, Carromero’s months of silence and his weak performance
since, and Modig’s assertion that he remembers nothing in a car that was
allegedly being followed, harassed, and rammed while he supposedly slept.
If the querella proceeds in Spanish
courts, it may shed light on parts of this story, especially since Carromero
has only faced light and sympathetic questioning in his Spanish media
interviews. Apart from the witness
testimony and evidence presented, it would be interesting to see whether Cuban
evidence and the Cuban verdict come into play, whether Cuba would cooperate in
what would essentially be a re-trial of the Bayamo proceeding, whether the
Spanish government plays a role or takes a position, and what procedures and standard
of proof would be used to reach a judgment.
More:
·
Spanish
law professor Enrique Gimbernat argues that if Spain vacates the Cuban sentence
against Carromero, it will harm the Spanish national interest because other
countries will no longer honor agreements with Spain whereby Spaniards who
commit crimes abroad are permitted to serve out their sentences at home. Carromero responded by saying that the Spanish government signed
a memorandum with Cuba reserving the right to pardon him, requiring only that
Spain inform Cuba of that act.
·
In CubaEncuentro, Alejandro
Armengol supports additional investigation of the case and cuts the Cuban
government no slack. He goes on to
explain the Spanish political context of Carromero’s statements. Carromero has been championed by and strongly
supports Partido Popular leader Esperanza Aguirre, a party rival of the
politically troubled Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. Armengol suggests that Aguirre may have
unleashed Carromero at a moment when his statements would cause the most damage
to Rajoy.
