HAVANA, November 23 (Fara Armenteros, UPECI / CubaNet) - Rafael Gutiérrez
Delgado, 41, committed suicide to avoid being arrested by police agents who
surprised him cooking beef at his home in eastern Granma province.
Gutiérrez ingested a pesticide and died on the spot when police broke
into his home and told him he was under arrest for possession of beef, said
UPECI reporter Leonardo Cancio Díaz. Gutiérrez reportedly told the
agents "I’m not going to jail; you want to put me away for many years."
"I don’t know how to make sense of what happened... Why did eating
beef cost my brother his life?" said the the dead man’s brother José.
In Cuba, beef is available through the rationing system at the rate of
one-half pound per person two or three times a year, or more freely in the
dollar stores. Other than that, there is a brisk trade in illegally slaughtered
beef in the black market. In order to curb the theft and subsequent slaughter of
cattle from Cuba’s already-decimated herd, authorities have provided for
stiff sanctions in the country’s penal code.
"You’ll get a longer jail sentence for killing a cow than for
killing a person," people here say.
Versión
original en español
CubaNet does not require sole rights from its
contributors. We authorize the reproduction and distribution of this article as
long as the source is credited.
| 
