Cuba: Activist tried over fatal car crash

A Spanish political activist has been tried on charges of negligently causing the car crash that killed a prominent Cuban dissident.

Several government opponents including noted blogger Yoani Sanchez were detained around the eastern city where the proceedings were taking place.

Defendant Angel Carromero’s trial wrapped up in the evening in Bayamo, about 500 miles east of the capital, Havana, and near the site of the July 22 road crash in which Oswaldo Paya and another dissident, Harold Cepero, died.

Authorities accused Carromero of speeding and charged him with the equivalent of vehicular manslaughter, and prosecutors asked the court for a seven-year sentence.

In videotaped statements, the Spaniard has said he lost control upon driving onto an unpaved section of road under repair and the vehicle skidded into a tree.

Carromero’s lawyer argued that it was impossible to determine the exact velocity of the vehicle, showed photographs of allegedly poor road signs warning of the upcoming roadwork that have since been replaced and asked for him to be acquitted. Carromero did not testify.

A panel of judges will now consider the evidence and issue a ruling at an unspecified future date.