Cuba freed the perpetrator of the 1997 Havana bombings

The Cuban government released Raúl Ernesto Cruz León, one of the perpetrators of the six bombings of tourist lodgings in Havana in 1977, after 30 years in prison.

After being arrested on September 4 of that year, the Salvadoran confessed to having bombed hotels and tourist centers in the island's capital. One of them killed an Italian tourist, businessman Fabio di Celmo, 32 years old.

Cruz Leon was sentenced to death for "continued terrorism," but in 2010 the Supreme Court commuted his punishment to 30 years in prison. The same happened with his compatriot Otto René Rodríguez Llerena, who claimed to have committed a bomb attack against the Meliá-Cohiba complex, in addition to having brought two explosive devices into the country.

Fidel Castro (1926-2016), then president, blamed the United States for the attacks by the two anti-Castro exiles based in Miami, Florida. His executive blamed the organization of Cuban emigrants Fundación Nacional Cubano Americana (FNCA) and Luis Posada Carriles (1928-2018), a Cuban opponent of the regime and CIA collaborator whom Cuba blames for crimes such as the explosion of a Cubana de Aviación plane in mid-flight.

The accusatory tone against Washington has not changed since then: "It is evident the double standard of the United States, which keeps Cuba on an unjust list of state sponsors of terrorism, while its own country protects those responsible for such acts against the largest of the Antilles," wrote the Granma, official apparatus of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. The Razones de Cuba media outlet even described the release as "an example" of Cuban "justice" in the face of "the hypocrisy of the United States." Razones de Cuba