Cuban political prisoner Humberto Eladio Reál Suárez released after 29 years

The Cuban communist regime will finally release political prisoner Humberto Eladio Reál Suárez on Thursday after serving 29 years in Castro's prisons, pro-democracy activist Mercy Perdigón confirmed on social media.

Cuban exiles who learned of the release have already prepared a vigil in Real's honor at the Brigade 2506 monument in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami, a relic that was erected to pay tribute to the anti-Castro commandos who fought during the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961. 

Real's release has been highly anticipated by the Cuban exile community ever since it was first reported in February by Radio Televisión Martí.  

Real has been treated as a political prisoner, held in the Agüica prison in the central province of Matanzas.

In that report, Real's mother, Graciela Suárez, said her son had been the victim of abuse and faced death threats from other inmates in the prison.

“He was in the courtyard, and a prisoner approached him and told him that two others next to him said 'they could beat him up and kill him,' because he was a terrorist and counterrevolutionary," Suárez reported. 

Humberto Eladio Real Suárez was first arrested on October 15, 1994 after disembarking along the with Armando Sosa Fortuny and Miguel Díaz Bouza along the coast of Caibarién in Villa Clara.

Once the group made landfall, regime agents shot at them and they fired back, according to the Radio Martí report.

The three Cubans were captured, prosecuted and ultimately sentenced to long prison terms forcrimes of infiltration, illegal entry to the island and acts against State Security.

Real Suárez was initially sentenced to death, a judgment that was utlimately commuted to 30 years in prison in 2010. 

In 2020, Real Suárez and Díaz Bouza were the recipients of the Pedro Luis Boitel Freedom Award in abstentia.