Havana/Almost three years after the feminicide in Havana of the teenager Melani García Lorenzo, not only has there not been a trial against the alleged perpetrators, but now one of the three involved, the father of the young woman’s ex-partner, has been released. According to a note published by CubaNetreplicated by the Alas Tensas Gender Observatory (Ogat), Pedro Tomás Serrate, former partner of the murdered young woman, was seen on the streets of Havana by the minor’s family in recent days.
“My husband sees it and tells me, so I called where I lived and they confirmed it. The next day, automatically, I went to the Prosecutor’s Office to be informed why they had released him and with what justification, because I couldn’t believe it,” said Yanet Lorenzo Villalba, the minor’s mother.
The authorities justified the measure by “a matter of illness,” the woman added. “They told me that they had changed the precautionary measure. I don’t understand what the illness is. For me, he should not be on the street because he was also involved in the murder of my daughter,” he said.
The lack of information about the release even included Melani’s family lawyer. In fact, the mother said, it was she who informed her defense that Serrate was out of prison. According to Lorenzo Villalba, his lawyer believes that the Prosecutor’s Office should have notified him of the decision.
According to Lorenzo Villalba, his lawyer considers that the Prosecutor’s Office should have notified him of the decision
The woman also reported that she was informed that the file would be sent to the Attorney General’s Office to evaluate the request for sanctions, which, she indicated, was “very high” according to the authorities. “I don’t know who to turn to and it’s been almost three years and this isn’t over,” he lamented.
Serrate’s release not only represents an affront to the family in the face of the trial for Melani’s death, but has increased concern for the family’s safety, especially for the victim’s son. Lorenzo Villalba fears that the man could harm him or take him away. “I’m afraid because that family, as you can see, is not good at all and is a potential danger for my grandson,” he remarked.
Melani García Lorenzo, then 16 years old, was beaten to death between December 15 and 16, 2023, in the La Palma neighborhood, in the Havana municipality of Arroyo Naranjo. The feminicide, Pedro Julio Serrate Corrales, had been his partner and had at least two accomplices, as Alas Tensas reported at that time.
The minor had left for her brother’s house, who had a fever and was suffering from epileptic seizures. Hours later, her mother received a call alerting her that her daughter’s ex-partner had taken the teenager by force. “At one in the morning on December 16, they called me and told me that Pedro Julio had beaten her out of the house and taken her away in the garbage truck,” she told CubaNet.
Lorenzo Villalba and her husband began looking for her. In addition to calling the emergency number, the mother went to different police stations to ask for help. In her public complaint in December 2023, she reported that the agents told her that they were busy dealing with robbery and drug cases and they did not attend to her.
In addition to calling the emergency number, the mother went to different police stations to ask for help.
At the Capri station, she finally found an officer who took the report, but the process continued to delay until the mother told the agents that there was a rumor that her daughter had been killed. From there they traveled in a patrol car to the home.
Melani’s body was found at the scene. “They had left her inside the house, lying; she was already dead,” said Lorenzo Villalba. “Forensic Medicine says that she died at 6 in the morning from the beatings,” the woman added. In addition to the former partner and his father, Frank Mario, identified as Julio Pedro’s cousin, was also identified as an accomplice.
The delay in the judicial process for the feminicide of Melani García Lorenzo does not constitute an isolated case within the Cuban justice system, Alas Tensas highlights. “The Cuban Observatory on Gender Equality (Ocig), linked to the National Office of Statistics and Information and the Federation of Cuban Women, reported that 49 women aged 15 years or older were victims of murders for gender reasons in cases tried during 2025,” it adds.
The delay in the judicial process for the feminicide of Melani García Lorenzo does not constitute an isolated case within the Cuban justice system
Last March, the Ogat warned for “the harsh situation that children, adolescents and older adults are going through in the current context of the humanitarian crisis in Cuba, which is also evident in the femicides.”
In 2023, the year in which Melani was murdered, independent observatories recorded 90 femicides, the highest annual number documented then since monitoring began in 2019.
For this year, according to the count of 14ymedio53 femicides have been recorded in Cuba. The most recent case was that of Nilda Diaz Santana58, who was shot when she tried to defend her daughter from an attack.
In most of the attacks confirmed by the observatory in the year, the same pattern of brutality, closeness of the aggressor to the victim and lack of institutional protection is shown.
The same pattern of brutality is shown, closeness of the aggressor to the victim and institutional lack of protection.
In this regard, an analysis by typology of the femicides verified in 2025 by Alas Tensas shows that 83.3% of the murders recorded last year were carried out by the victims’ partner. “The persistence of gender violence in the area of emotional relationships is confirmed as the main risk scenario,” he indicates.
Likewise, it states that “the marked concentration of femicides of partners and ex-partners indicates that the home and intimate relationships continue to be spaces of high vulnerability, in a context where unequal power relations persist and where institutional mechanisms of prevention, protection and care are insufficient or non-existent.”
Ogat adds that “reporting these crimes allows us to break the institutional silence, preserve the memory of the victims, identify patterns of violence and demand prevention, protection and justice measures. This work is essential in a country where there are no updated and verifiable official figures on femicides.”
