Augusto Martínez Sánchez (1923 – 2 February 2013) was a Cuban lawyer and politician, and one of the commanders of the

Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in cou ...

close to Fidel Castro. Martínez Sánchez was a member of the

July 26 Movement The 26th of July Movement ( es, Movimiento 26 de Julio; M-26-7) was a Cuban vanguard revolutionary organization and later a political party led by Fidel Castro. The movement's name commemorates its 26 July 1953 attack on the army barracks on San ...

since April 1958 and participated in the guerrilla struggle in the Sierra Maestra against the government of

Fulgencio Batista Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (; ; born Rubén Zaldívar, January 16, 1901 – August 6, 1973) was a Cuban military officer and politician who served as the elected president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944 and as its U.S.-backed military dictator ...

, attached to the Second Eastern Front "Frank País", under the direct orders of

Raúl Castro Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz (; ; born 3 June 1931) is a retired Cuban politician and general who served as the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, the most senior position in the one-party communist state, from 2011 to 2021, succeedi ...

Military Prosecutor

In 1959 he was appointed Military Prosecutor directing the purges against the military and police forces that had served Batista. From this position, he was responsible for the execution of those Batista elements who had committed crimes against humanity against the Cuban civilian population.

Minister of National Defense

Upon the triumph of the rebel forces, he was appointed Minister of National Defense of the first cabinet of the revolutionary government chaired by Manuel Urrutia, according to a decree of January 10, 1959, but always under the direct orders of Fidel Castro. Martínez Sánchez was the first substitute as Prime Minister on Castro's trip to New York in April 1959. In December of that same year, Martínez Sánchez's car was the target of an attack by opponents of the revolutionary government, in which three of his escorts were injured.

Revolutionary Court

On March 29, 1962, he was appointed Judge of the Revolutionary Court that tried the participants in the Invasion of the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961. Commanders

Juan Almeida Bosque Juan Almeida Bosque (February 17, 1927 – September 11, 2009) was a Cuban politician and one of the original commanders of the insurgent forces in the Cuban Revolution. After the rebels took power in 1959, he was a prominent figure in the Co ...

, Guillermo García, Sergio del Valle, and

Manuel Piñeiro Manuel Piñeiro Losada (14 March 1933 - 11 March 1998), also known as Commander Barbarroja (''es: "red beard"'') was a Cuban political and military figure, a leader of the Cuban Revolution, and, between 1961 and 1964, the first head of the Direcc ...

were also members of this Court. He worked also with Piñeiro in the Ministry of the Interior.

Minister of Labor

Fidel Castro with Augusto Martinez Sanchez 1960

At the beginning of the sixties, he was appointed Minister of Labor. In 1964 he was removed from this position by Fidel Castro personally due to strong accusations of corruption.

Suicide attempt

On December 8, 1964, apparently as a result of errors in his work, Augusto Martínez Sánchez shot himself in the head but failed in his suicide attempt and survived. He never returned to public life. He went into retirement with the rank of colonel in the late 1980s. Between October and December 2010, he traveled with permission to Miami, United States of America, where his eldest son Augusto Martínez resided since the early eighties; later the Cuban ex-military man returned to the island. His last wish was to be cremated and his ashes deposited in the Veterans Pantheon of the

Colón Cemetery El Cementerio de Cristóbal Colón, also called La Necrópolis de Cristóbal Colón, was founded in 1876 in the Vedado neighbourhood of Havana, Cuba to replace the Espada Cemetery in the Barrio de San Lázaro. Named for Christopher Columbus, t ...

, Havana, Cuba.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Martinez Sanchez, Augusto 1923 births 2013 deaths Cuban politicians Cuban revolutionaries People of the Cuban Revolution 20th-century revolutions Fidel Castro