Cuba sentences former deputy PM Alejandro Gil to life in prison for espionage and treason
The politician, who was also economy minister, was until 2024 a highly trusted collaborator of President Miguel Díaz-Canel
Cuba’s former deputy prime minister and ex-economy minister Alejandro Gil Fernández, who just two years ago was considered the right-hand man of President Miguel Díaz-Canel, has been sentenced in two separate trials to life imprisonment and 20 years in prison for a dozen crimes considered “treason.” Gil’s sentences — which the Cuban people had been eagerly awaiting — were announced on Monday by the Cuban Supreme People’s Court (TSP).
The decisions put an end to the political and judicial maneuvering by the regime that began with the official’s sudden dismissal in February 2024. However, it does not end the opacity surrounding the case. Although Cubans have demanded transparency, the government has limited itself to providing details about an individual who, in the opinion of many, is simply the latest scapegoat of Castroism, which is undergoing one of the greatest crises in its history.
In a statement, the court concluded that the former official “deceived the country’s leadership and the people he represented, thereby causing damage to the economy.” Gil, who on more than one occasion asked the people to trust his reforms and his promises, was the mastermind behind the failed Tarea Ordenamiento (Reorganization Task), which in 2021 promised to pull the country out of economic stagnation by ending the dual currency system and reforming prices. Although four years later Cuba is a more impoverished territory, the debacle did not begin with Gil’s measures, but is rather a cumulative process that has been decades in the making.
The former government official, who had two court hearings, one between November 11 and 13 and another between November 26 and 29, “breached work processes with classified official information that he handled, stole, damaged, and finally made available to enemy services,” according to official information. “This highly damaging behavior demonstrated an ethical, moral, and political degradation in the accused that makes him deserving of a severe criminal response, as required by Article 4 of the Constitution of the Republic, which establishes that treason against the homeland is the most serious of crimes and that those who commit it are subject to the most severe penalties,” the statement added.
Without going into further detail or clearing up the many questions that have surrounded the case over the past few months, the Cuban government also stated that, through his “corrupt and deceitful actions,” Gil took advantage of his “authority” for personal gain, received money from foreign sources, and bribed other public officials “to legalize the acquisition of assets.” The former Cuban minister — accused of crimes such as “espionage, acts that were detrimental to economic activity, as well as bribery, theft and damage to documents or other objects in official custody, violation of official seals and infringement of classified document-protection regulations” — will have his assets confiscated and he will be prohibited from holding any public position.
On October 31, an official statement from the Attorney General’s Office announced that in the investigations by the Ministry of the Interior, where “due process was guaranteed,” the former economy minister was found accountable for crimes that, according to independent specialists, he could not have committed on his own all these years. “It is a very highly shared responsibility. All relevant measures in this area are approved at the highest level and were reviewed and implemented with the endorsement of the Council of Ministers or the Political Bureau,” Ricardo Torres, a former researcher at the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy and a professor at American University in Washington, previously told EL PAÍS. Both the dismissal of the former minister, who served between 2018 and 2024, and the charges against him reveal the tensions within the government apparatus in Havana.
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