Abel Machado Conde, 25, was sentenced to nine years in prison for demonstrating in Güines, Mayabec in July 2021. The Cuban justice system tried him on charges of “sabotage” and “disturbing public order.” Abel has suffered from depression and mental illness since he was a child due to a brain injury.
From the age of 10, Abel was diagnosed with organic personality disorder, which is why he suffered from attention deficit disorder and attempted suicide several times, also in prison.
The young man was declared unfit for active service (SMA) after a medical examination; however, his condition did not exempt him from being arrested on August 25, 2021 and sentenced to deprivation of liberty.
“The Military Prosecutor’s Office has been monitoring my brother since July 11 and they know he is not fit to go to jail, there is something wrong with him. He was hanging out with the kids in the neighborhood so they didn’t touch him. When they took him As he was leaving, the head of the prosecutor’s office in San José de la Jas told my mother that he did not know what he was doing there because they had not touched him due to his mental problems. He then told him that the Ministry of National Security or People from the police station charged him and they have to go there,” explained His brother Guillermo Serra Conde told independent media.
In Guillermo’s words, Abel’s pre-trial medical examination was “window dressing.” “It happened in a buggy room at the back of a hospital in San José de la Jas, and there was a doctor, he was not a doctor, he was a prosecutor and it was shown at the trial that the board of doctors who appointed him was a doctor. lie.”
Ill-treatment, arbitrary and violent behavior against Abel in Kivikan prison
Abel remains incarcerated despite prison authorities having his full medical history. He was also evaluated by a psychiatrist, who concluded he was not suitable for prison. “I was so nervous because I was sleeping waiting for someone to come and tell me that my youngest son had committed suicide,” explain Beatrice Conte, his mother.
In January 2023, Beatrice reported that the prison lacked medication to treat her son’s condition, that he could not stand being in jail, and that he heard calls for him to commit suicide.
«I went to visit my son on January 6th and I found him very anxious and very restless. “I looked at his head and he had hair loss.” Announce cuban
Concerned, Beatrice called the prison and went to Citizen Services to request that he be evaluated by a medical board. They responded that Abel had been prescribed carbamazepine, a drug used to treat patients with epileptic seizures, but they had not given him an antidepressant.
Two months later, the family Counted Juliski Méndez Montero, the second director of the Quivican prison, attacked the young man: “He put him on the fence and caused multiple bruises; I saw them and I was theirs Mother, because I am their witness,” said Beatrice. He was charged with resisting police and transferred to a punishment cell, where he had to sleep on the floor for a week.
Mother explain A formal complaint against the officer has been submitted to the Ginez Regional Military Prosecutor’s Office, adding that he will file another charge of physical abuse with the National Penitentiary Facilities Directorate of the Interior Ministry in Havana.
“I’m holding the Gineese Police Department, the State Security Service and the warden accountable. I’ve been warning you for a while and no one has stopped me from telling me what happened to that little boy because when I stopped by the District Attorney’s Office At that time, I was told that no one would touch the child. He said: “I have a responsibility to everyone in this country who has anything to do with him, with my son’s life. “
In April 2023, the political prisoner wrote to his mother stating that he was willing to commit suicide if he continued to be harassed in prison. “Mom, I’m sorry, I love you with all my heart, but if they kick me out one more day without doing anything, I swear I’m going to take my life… I’m tired of suffering like this a lot,” wrote.
Since being imprisoned, Abel has attempted suicide twice. His brother, Guillermo Sierra Conde, believed that the last attempt was due to the treatment of Yuliesky Méndez Montero, the second captain of the unit. Beaten.
“My brother tried to commit suicide seven times, five of them when he was a child and twice in prison. In prison, when he tried to hang himself, he was stopped by the same guards who held him with some beads (on his hands and feet) chain) to a stretcher, put him on the stretcher and beat him with a wooden board under the stretcher. They returned him to the punishment cell,” Announce Guillermo Serra Conde Cuban DNA.
State security also harassed Beatrice over Guillermo’s publications calling for her brother’s release.
“They had a dozen inmates watching him day and night because they knew he was really going to kill himself, so they were afraid he was going to kill himself. But they weren’t doing physical exams where they had to be (the psychiatric clinic); “This is where medical expert opinion is presented under the full authority of a physician,” point out.
Last August, Beatrice Conte Report again His imprisoned son’s human rights were once again violated. Abel suffered asthma attacks and chronic gastritis in prison without receiving medical care or medication. His mother reported that the asthma relapsed a few years later due to prison conditions.
“It doesn’t have a spray albuterol, they didn’t give him medical care, they didn’t give him a first aid kit, they didn’t take him anywhere,” he claimed. They also didn’t give him omeprazole, ranitidine, or any other medicine for gastritis.
During a visit on August 15, Beatrice discovered that he was in a depressive crisis and was not receiving psychiatric care or medication.