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Life sentence for the Florencia double murder, in a ruling that names no one

The provincial court of Ciego de Ávila announced the sentence for the August 2025 killings without identifying the defendant or the victims; the names were published by a Facebook account linked to the Interior Ministry.

The Provincial People's Court of Ciego de Ávila announced on Tuesday on its Facebook page a sentence of "perpetual deprivation of liberty" for a murder committed in the municipality of Florencia, without identifying the defendant or the victims. The sentence corresponds to case 84 of 2026, heard by the First Criminal Chamber after a trial the statement describes as "oral and public."

The names were given by a Facebook account linked to the Interior Ministry in Ciego de Ávila, in a post by Luis Alberto Medina Vega that described the double killing as a "crime of passion," according to 14ymedio, Periódico Cubano and Cubanet. The man convicted is Adrián Cruz Díaz, who killed his former partner, Marialina García Borroto, and Abel Morales Castro, who was in a relationship with her.

The couple were attacked with a bladed weapon at their home in Florencia in August 2025. According to accounts circulated at the time on social media and reported by 14ymedio, the attacker had previously served a sentence for murder and was a fugitive when the killings came to light; Periódico Cubano notes that this was not corroborated in the court statement. The authorities did not say how the arrest took place, what the decisive evidence was or which aggravating circumstances the court considered.

The sentence comes days after the Provincial People's Court of Santiago de Cuba imposed a life sentence on Guillermo Sánchez Gutiérrez for the murder of a police officer in Palma Soriano in July 2025, a case in which the authorities did identify the man convicted and detailed the circumstances, though they omitted the victim's name.

Sources: 14ymedio · Periódico Cubano · Cubanet

Data updated: 2026-11-05T04:30:00.000Z

Life sentence for the Florencia double murder, in a ruling that names no one | Yamacoa Observatory