The Cuban opposition figure Boris Betancourt is imprisoned in Panama, awaiting extradition to the Island. As Betancourt himself has explained in statements to CiberCuba, he has been locked up in a maximum-security Panamanian prison for 15 months, where he is confined for 23 hours a day, "like an animal."

He claims that his imprisonment in Panama is due to "a case fabricated by Cuba," stemming from his work as an opposition figure, especially during the time of Oswaldo Payá, who passed away in 2012. Despite his activism alongside the leader of the Varela Project, he has unsuccessfully attempted to reach his daughter, Rosa María Payá. "I am trying to locate Rosa Payá and she does not appear," he tells CiberCuba. His lawyer, Lázara Gutiérrez Fernández, has also tried "by all means and she does not respond."

Boris Betancourt was arrested in Panama for drug use. He claims that he arrived in the country intending to seek asylum. "I went through Medalla Milagrosa, in Chiriquí (managed by the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul), but they were full and referred me to the Norwegian Refugee Council, under UNHCR. Two days after being there, the Panamanian police raided the apartment where I was staying."

They did it, according to what they told him, drawn by "the smell of marijuana," although Boris Betancourt says that "that's a lie." The night before his arrest, his grandparents called him to say that Agent Valentino (from the Cuban Political Police) had been at the family home and had told them that they already knew (in State Security) where he was.

According to Betancourt's testimony, sent in writing to CiberCuba, the police search in Panama found him with a few grams of marijuana for personal use, which he claims to have bought the day before his arrest "because it calms his anxiety." His defense clarifies that, according to the court ruling, he was found with 0.48 grams of marijuana.

"Boris (Betancourt) is detained in Panama as he awaits his extradition to Cuba. He was arrested in Panama for another reason, but Cuba had already requested him from Interpol," adds his lawyer, Lázara Gutiérrez Fernández.

"He already had the hearing regarding the objections against the Foreign Affairs resolution, where the extradition is admitted and was also denied. He requested political asylum, but the director of Onpar (National Office for Refugee Assistance) as well as Foreign Affairs believe that rights are not violated in Cuba and promised not to apply the death penalty to Boris, which has been said that they are not interested in appeasing anyone," insists the lawyer.

"The defense of everything that has been done is based on the violation of Boris's rights because he is a leader of an organization he created years ago. He has been an opponent of Cuba's murderous regime since he was 16, facing several imprisonments in Cuba for that reason, and they do not accept dissenters," concludes attorney Gutiérrez Fernández.

Drugs

"Consuming (drugs) at night to be able to sleep," Boris Betancourt explained to this platform. The problem is that when the Panamanian police checked his background, his name was flagged with a red alert for drug trafficking, put in place by the Cuban regime through Interpol. This is how he ended up accused of drug trafficking and waiting to be extradited to the Island, where he believes his life is in danger. In Cuba, he has his grandparents, an aunt, and a cousin, and he insists that all of them have been subjected to "constant checks and control since 2021" and "their phones are being monitored."

Betancourt says he knows this because when he was arrested in Panama, he called his family, and the next day they received a visit from an agent of the political police who goes by the name Valentino and claimed to know how much the lawyers in Panama charged. "I had told them about it when I spoke on the phone," he says.

"A neighbor who lives two houses away from ours (in Cuba) installed a video camera to watch his house. He is a traffic officer," notes Betancourt, whom the Havana regime links to an international drug trafficking network. He denies it. He claims he was set up when he met in Costa Rica with two individuals with whom he was arranging financial assistance for his political group, Camino a la Democracia Pacífica de Cuba.

"The dictatorship infiltrated me with two Cuban spies living in the United States," he says without identifying these individuals, although he places one in Houston and the other in Miami. "They infiltrated them with the purpose of giving me a financial donation for my cause, but what they did was record me and hack into my email. They also infiltrated another spy in Costa Rica, who was the secretary of the Cuban consul at the embassy," he emphasizes in writing.

That supposed donation for the cause never arrived, despite Boris Betancourt's claim that he met with those alleged donors in Costa Rica. It was there that they allegedly told him they couldn’t give him the money because their accounts had been 'hacked' and they couldn’t withdraw cash from their cards. They promised to do it upon arriving in the United States, but Boris Betancourt swears that “they never did.”

To those unidentified individuals, Betancourt showed them "the logistics" of how he was going to use the money they were going to donate. "I showed them emails with activists in Cuba. They all were arrested, and they 'hacked' my phone."

Now, from Panama, he wants his case to be discussed; that justice is served and that the "hate" he feels for communists transcends. His case has been covered by the Spanish media aligned with the Díaz-Canel regime, Cubainformación.tv, which claims that during the search conducted in Betancourt's apartment, 2 kilos of marijuana were seized. Additionally, they assert that the regime is aware that Boris Betancourt has smuggled drugs into Cuba "using Panama and Costa Rica" for his allegedly criminal activities. The opposition figure denies the charges.