Annex 1: Note by the Cuban government on the death of Wilman Villar Mendoza.
Note by the Cuban government on the death of Wilman Villar Mendoza
JANUARY 20, 2012
Information Note
This January 19th, inmate Wilman Villar Mendoza, who was serving a sentence for committing common crimes, died at the intensive-care unit of the Clinical and Surgical Hospital “Doctor Juan Bruno Zayas” in Santiago de Cuba at 18:45hrs, due to a multiple organ failure that was followed by a severe septic respiratory process, which caused a septic shock to the patient.
This person had been rushed in an emergency from the penitentiary center “Aguadores” to the provincial hospital “Saturnino Lora” last January 13, with symptoms of severe pneumonia in the left lung, and was given the medical assistance required by this kind of infection, which included artificial feeding and ventilation, fluid-therapy, hemoderivatives, vasoactive drugs and last generation broad-spectrum antibiotics.
The Clinical and Surgical Hospital “Doctor Juan Bruno Zayas” is one of the high-level medical centers of Cuba’s Eastern region and its intensive-care unit has great expertise in the assistance of seriously ill patients.
Villar Mendoza lived in the municipality of Contramaestre, in the province of Santiago. He was serving a prison sentence since November 25, 2011, accused of contempt, battery and resistance to authority.
The circumstances in which he was convicted occurred during a public altercation, when he hit his wife in the face, which made his mother-in-law request the intervention of the authorities. When the agents of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) arrived at the scene, he resisted and attacked them.
His close relatives were aware of all the medical procedures followed and acknowledged the efforts made by the team of specialists that assisted him.
Regarding this event, and for some days now, a number of foreign press agencies, particularly from Miami, have been promoting an intensive international defamatory campaign, with the connivance of domestic counterrevolutionary elements, aimed at portraying Villar Mendoza as an alleged “dissident” who died as a result of a hunger strike he maintained while in prison. In this respect, there are plenty of evidence and testimonies showing that he was not a dissident and he was not on a hunger strike.
After committing the crime for which he was convicted, Wilman Villar began associating himself with counterrevolutionary elements in Santiago de Cuba who made him believe that an alleged relation with mercenary groups would allow him to evade justice.
Cuba regrets the death of any human being. It strongly condemns these gross manipulations by our enemies and will dismantle this new aggression with the truth and the strength that characterize our people.