Spain Wants Lenient Treatment for Angel Carromero on His Vehicular Manslaughter Charges

The treatment board of a prison in the north-central Spanish province of Segovia has proposed that Angel Carromero, who was extradited from Cuba after being convicted there of vehicular manslaughter, be granted open-regime, or semi-free, status.

Sources with the General Secretariat of Penitentiary Institutions told Efe Thursday that the prison where the Spaniard is serving out his sentence made the proposal and that the secretariat will issue its final decision on Friday.

Carromero, a leader of the youth wing of Spain’s governing conservative Popular Party, is serving a four-year sentence handed down by a Cuban court for a July 2012 car accident in which prominent Cuban dissident Osvaldo Paya and another opponent of the island’s communist government were killed.

The proposal states that Carromero meets the requirements of open-regime status, citing his family ties in Spain, the type of crime committed, his conduct while in prison and the fact he is employed.

The Madrid municipal government announced that if Carromero is granted open-regime status he can return to his workplace in a district of the Spanish capital.

Prisoners with “semi-free” status can enjoy privileges such as only spending the night behind bars and being granted authorized leave on weekends.

The Spaniard, Swedish citizen Jens Aron Modig, Paya and fellow dissident Harold Cepero were on their way from the Cuban capital to the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba in a rented car on July 22 when the accident happened.

The vehicle, with Carromero at the wheel, ran off the road and crashed near Bayamo, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) east of Havana.

Paya and Cepero died, while Carromero and Modig suffered relatively minor injuries.

Cuban authorities blamed the accident on excessive speed and the driver’s failure to heed warning signs about road construction. They say the car was going 120 kph (nearly 75 mph) along a stretch of highway where the speed limit was 60 kph (around 37 mph).

The activist was sent back to Spain on Dec. 29 and since then has been held at the prison in Segovia.

Published in Latino Daily News