FLORIDA.- Villa Clara judge Melody González Pedraza, a henchman of the Cuban regime who is being held by immigration authorities at the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach, Florida, said she has not been able to find a lawyer to defend her and that she “never thought” she would be treated in the United States as a “vile criminal.”
The young men are: Andy Gabriel González Fuentes, Eddy Daniel Rodríguez Pérez and Luis Ernesto Medina Pedraza, while Adain Barreiro Pérez was sentenced to three years in prison, all for the alleged crime of attacking the security of the Cuban regime.
Now, from the United States, González Pedraza says she is disconcerted by the treatment she received from the American justice system. “When I arrived in this country I thought I had reached freedom and that I could shout out everything I have endured and suffered.. I never thought that they would handcuff me and treat me like a vile criminal. The first days of my detention were terrible. I was subjected to oppression such as I have never allowed in my 18 years of profession to be done to any detainee in my presence. I know that it is the procedure to follow, but it has been the most humiliating thing I have ever experienced,” she told Cuba Diary
Without defense attorney
The Cuban judge has not found a lawyer willing to represent her. González does not know if she will be given the opportunity to present her request for asylum during a hearing with a judge on July 31 or if she will simply be read the charges under which she remains deprived of her liberty.
“I don’t even know if the hearing on the 31st will be to read me the charges or if they will give me the possibility of applying for asylum. I don’t think I have any options, mainly because my family has not been able to hire a lawyer yet. There are several people that we have called, both my family and I from this place, for ethical reasons I will not mention their names, but so far I have only received refusals and excuses. This is frustrating, not having anyone to guide me, to direct me, to approach the deporter or the judge on my behalf. It is very frustrating and sad at the same time.”
The former judge, who was a member of the Communist Party and has been included by the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FDHC) on its list of white-collar repressors, says that she has wanted to “do things in the most just and correct way.”
And while he complains, the four young men whose lives he cut short are serving sentences in the dungeons of the dictatorship.
Source: EDITORIAL/Diario de Cuba
