The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has learned with deep concern the decision of a judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, issued on May 1, 2024, which acquitted Alexander Alazo Baró of the four charges against him, as a result of the terrorist attack perpetrated by him against the Cuban Embassy in the United States in the early morning of April 30, 2020, for which he alleged insanity conditions of the perpetrator.
Alazo, a Cuban-born individual who has lived in the United States since 2010, fired all 32 rounds from a magazine of a semi-automatic rifle ak-47 into Cuba’s diplomatic headquarters in Washington, causing extensive property damage to the exterior and interior of the building and endangering the lives of several people inside the building.
Alazo himself confessed that he intended to shoot whatever was in front of him, including human beings if they had been in his line of fire. This was a terrorist act in the capital city of the United States against a permanent diplomatic headquarters.
At the time of his arrest, Alazo’s regular association with the Doral Jesus Worship Center in Miami Dade, where people with known behavior in favor of aggression, hostility, violence and extremism against Cuba meet, was well known.
The terrorist was arrested immediately at the scene and the U.S. government charged him with four offenses under the U.S. Federal Code. However, it has been unable to qualify the action for what it is: a terrorist act.
The politicization by the United States of the attack perpetrated against the Cuban Embassy in Washington was evident from the very first moments. This is demonstrated by the lengthy process of analyzing proven facts.
Four years after the events and in a criminal process full of opacity, the judge accepted a joint report from the Prosecutor’s Office and the defense of the terrorist Alexander Alazo Baró, which presents the perpetrator as someone who, at the time of the events, was not in possession of his mental faculties and, therefore, declares him innocent.
This decision sends a dangerous message of impunity to those who intend to take violent actions against diplomatic headquarters in Washington.
On September 24, 2023, in the evening hours, an individual threw two Molotov cocktails over the perimeter fence of the Cuban Embassy in Washington and against the front facade of that facility. It is an event that occurred three years and five months after the attack perpetrated by Alazo. Even U.S. law enforcement authorities claim not to know the perpetrator or have details of what happened.
These terrorist acts are a direct result of the aggressive policy and discourse of the U.S. government against Cuba, of the permanent incitement to violence and hatred by U.S. politicians and anti-Cuban extremist groups.
