Rubén López Sabariego

This 2004 picture shows the cliff just beyond the western boundary of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, where Captain Arthur J. Jackson initially tried to dispose of Rubén López's body.

Rubén López Sabariego (June 11, 1917 – September 30, 1961) was a Cuban bus driver working on the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, whose mysterious disappearance and death there became a cause célèbre in Cuba.

U.S. Naval Intelligence suspected López was a Cuban agent, but had nevertheless continued to let him keep his job on the base.

His body had been left to rot for over three weeks before it was returned to Cuba. When his body was returned, Cuban pathologists noting how extensively his bones had been broken, concluded he had been tortured.

Family life

López was orphaned at an early age, and was raised by his grandparents. López started his first stretch of working at the Guantanamo base in 1939, working there as a carpenter until 1945. He married Georgina González in 1940 and raised nine children. He started working at Guantanamo again in 1949, working there until his death.

Employment at Guantanamo

López had worked on the United States's Guantanamo Base since 1948. The USA employed thousands of Cuban workers, prior to the Cuban Revolution. Although it was the height of the Cold War, Cubans who the USA employed prior to the revolution were allowed to commute to the base and were allowed to continue to work there. As late as 2009, there were still three "commuters" working at Guantanamo, as well as several Cuban exiles living on the base.

Disappearance

López's wife Georgina González last saw him alive when he left for work on September 30, 1961. He was the executive officer of a Company of Marines guarding the western boundary of the base. According to Szili, he and his company commander, Captain Arthur J. Jackson, who was awarded a Medal of Honor during World War II, had consumed approximately six martini cocktails at the base officers' club on September 30, 1961. He said he left Jackson at the officers' club, went home to sleep, and was woken by a call from one of the base's provost officers, that Jackson had found López in a "restricted area", and that Jackson needed his help.

The camp police had told Jackson to escort López to the Northeast Gate, the only gate officially in use after the Cuban revolution.

Fidel Castro offered an account of López's death, based on the conclusions of the Cuban pathologists at López's autopsy, that López's body showed the effects of weeks of beating and torture. It reported that: