Cuba congratulates José Manzaneda on his legal victory

HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 21 (ACN) Cuba's Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla congratulated both “Cubainformación” journalist José Manzaneda and Euskadi-Cuba, the Basque association of friendship and solidarity with the island, for their recent victory in a Madrid court, an acquittal that he described on X as “a victory of truth in the face of the hatred that tries to silence solidarity with Cuba”.

A Madrid court found for Manzaneda and Euskadi-Cuba, who were accused of slander and libel by Javier Larrondo, president of the association called Prisoners Defenders, after an article of the former that the latter published on October 5, 2020, titled "Creating a health crisis in Cuba, goal of the war against its medical cooperation", in which Manzaneda decried Larrondo's stance on the presence of Cuban doctors in several countries and said that, like Donald Trump, he should be treated as a "war criminal".

However, the court ruled that the journalist acted with the intention of criticism, recrimination or political censorship, which falls within the boundaries of freedom of expression, and ordered him to pay part of the legal fees for his recklessness and bad faith in accusing the Euskadi-Cuba, since a legal entity cannot legally commit these crimes.