- Mexican newspapers publish for the first time the official story of the arrest of Fidel Castro and his comrades in the Federal District, based on an extract of the report sent by Captain Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios, from the Federal Security Directorate, to the Secretariat of the Interior.
- That afternoon he testifies together with some of his comrades detained at the Miguel Schultz Immigrant Detention Center.
Chronology
- He writes a letter from the Miguel Schultz Immigrant Detention Center to the Attorney General of Mexico, in which he denounces the abuse and torture suffered by his comrades Cándido González Morales and Santiago Díaz González, since their detention on 20 June by agents of the Mexican Secret Service.
- He testifies again together with his comrades, before the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office. The interrogation revolves around his background as a university student leader.
- The Mexican press echoes the information that Federal Judge Clotario Margalli had granted a reprieve to Fidel Castro and his comrades the day before, in response to a writ of amparo (remedy for the protection of constitutional rights), and therefore they are released from solitary confinement and put at the disposal of the prosecuting authorities.
- Excelsior, the Mexican newspaper, publishes a letter signed that day in Mexico City by a great number of representatives of Mexican student, youth and professional organizations. The letter requests Mexican President Adolfo Ruiz Cortines to immediately release the detained Cuban revolutionaries.
He continues to be isolated from his comrades at the Miguel Shultz Immigrant Detention Center in Mexico, although in the afternoons he is allowed to join them in the exercise yard.
- The arrest of Fidel Castro and his comrades in the Mexican capital is discussed in the column “En Cuba” (In Cuba) of Bohemia, based on the account made by the teacher from Santiago de Cuba María Antonia Figueroa some days earlier.
- The Mexican newspaper Excelsior reports that the expulsion of the Cuban detainees is almost certain under the big headline: “CASI SEGURA EXPULSIÓN DE CUBANOS DETENIDOS”.
Mexican federal judge Miguel Lavalle Fuentes intervenes on behalf of the revolutionary group led by Fidel, and instructs that the detainees should be put at his disposal in order to avoid their deportation. He orders the authorities of the Population Directorate to release the detainees within 24 hours or refer them to the competent legal authorities.
The Excelsior newspaper publishes under the headline “No son rojos, sino Nacionalistas los Cubanos” (Cubans are not red, but Nationalists) the first public statements written by Fidel Castro from the Miguel Schultz prison, denying the communist affiliation that had been intentionally attributed to him and ratifying the democratic and nationalist nature of the program of the 26th of July Movement. He denounces the plans plotted by the tyranny for his assassination, as well as the torture inflicted on three of his comrades.
His sister Lidia Castro and other Cubans visit him at the Miguel Schultz prison in Mexico City.
The Mexican Secretariat of the Interior refuses to comply with the court order to release Fidel and his comrades and informs judge Lavalle, who had issued the decision.
Lawyer Ignacio Mendoza Iglesias, the defender of the Cuban detainees in Mexico, rejects the decision of the Secretariat of the Interior not to release them and highlights that the arrogant attitude of the officials sets a terrible precedent and presents a challenge to the judiciary.
- The Bohemia magazine publishes a report signed in Mexico by Luis Dan and entitled: “El grupo 26 en la cárcel” (Group 26 in prison). The report echoes the cowardly defamation campaign launched against the Cuban revolutionaries who were imprisoned in the Mexican capital.
- His sister Lidia and other comrades visit him again at the Mexican prison. At the end of the visit, the fighters gathered in the prison yard sing the Cuban National Anthem and the 26th of July March.
- During his stay in the prison at Miguel Schultz No. 136, Mexico, he finishes writing the article entitled: “!Basta ya de mentiras!” (Enough with the lies), in response to the ill-intended report published in Bohemia by Luis Dan.
- He remains imprisoned together with Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, Calixto García Martínez, and Santiago Liberato Hirzel at the Miguel Schultz Immigrant Detention Center for the alleged expiry of their migratory documents. Twenty revolutionaries are released.