Liberated Ernesto Borges, one of the most profile Cuban political prisoners. «I am a man who loves Cuba»

The Cuban political prisoner Ernesto Borges Pérez, 59, was released this Thursday in Havana, after serving an «excessive» sentence, as confirmed to Martí News in a call.

«I feel very excited, I feel cheerful and I also feel a bit strange to be in my house after so many years. Today I feel that way, a mixture of joy with euphoria, it is strange,» he said in conversation with Martí News, just hours after his release.

The political expreasing thanked the support received from Radio Martí throughout his extensive conviction. He also had words of recognition for the Catholic Church in Cuba and the Vatican.

Particularly, he thanked the news monitoring that has made his case for years the journalist of Radio Martí, Amado Gil: «Amado, I want to tell you something, I deeply thank you for everything you have done for me and everything that the Martí radio team has done for me all these years, I appreciate it from the heart, even with the interference, with all the situations they had. Thank you for not forgetting of us.»

«What is the message you have at this time for which you are listening to you through Radio Martí?» Gil asked.

Borges replied: «First of all, thank everyone who has solidarity with political prisoners. All those who have not forgotten us, who are outside, my eternal gratitude for Cubans who are sensitized to reality, who do not dodge their eyes and that assume reality with value and dignity. I really, really, from my position as a political imprison that solidarity. «

Borges Pérez was 32 years old and the rank of captain when he was arrested on July 17, 1998 and accused of trying to pass secret information to the United States, which he had obtained from his analyst position of the Counterintelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Interior (Minint).

He was tried for the crime of espionage, in a tentative degree, and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

«I am one of those cases that I was excessively sanctioned, my crime was really an attempt espionage, and they sentenced me to 30 years as if they had asked me for a death penalty and I would have switched it to me,» he explained.

He almost completely extinguished his sanction in the prison of greatest rigor of Cuba, the team of Eastern Havana, until his release on April 24, 2025.

His name appeared in the lists of Cuban political prisoners of greater profile, without being released in any of the release processes agreed by the Cuban regime.

During their almost three decades of imprisonment, family members and human rights activists denounced that he underwent multiple abuses, in the absence of medical care and that his rights as a prisoner had been violated.

This Thursday, when a hypothetical message was asked for the regime that put it behind bars, he replied: «It would be that they would hope that they listen to the Cuban population, the people of Cuba. I hope they understood that it is necessary to dialogue with those who think differently inside and out of Cuba (…) I will be sincere, I see it a bit difficult.»

«I am a man who believes in God, a man who loves Cuba already seems to me that people who with honesty love Cuba should put before their personal and group interests, the well -being of an entire people who are suffering so much. I would like God to touch their hearts and I would like to have a transition process that was as traumatic as possible,» he concluded.