The Cuban Five's Defense Team Says the Battle for the Case Continues

The Cuban Five's Defense Team Says the Battle for the Case Continues
http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/cubanews.htm

HAVANA, Cuba, Aug 21 (acn) The political battle for the release of the five Cuban antiterrorist fighters unfairly imprisoned in the US must go on, said in Havana members of the Cuban Five's defense team.

The lawyers gave a press conference in which they noted that they represent the juridical side of the fight for the release of the Cuban Five, the Granma newspaper reports.

Participating in the news conference were Joaquin Mendez, Leonard Weinglas and Phillip Robert Horowitzs, defense counsels of Fernando Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero and Rene Gonzalez, respectively, as well as William Norris, Ramon Labañino's lawyer; Tom Goldstein, who headed the defense team before the Supreme Court; appeal specialist Richard Klugh; and Rafael Anglada, member of the defense team.

The jurists talked about Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labañino and Fernando Gonzalez' process of re-sentence, set for October 13, for which the three inmates will be transferred to Miami.

Mendez pointed that, throughout his professional career, he has never had a case that had taken so long. "Since they were arrested until today, 11 years later, there is not even a definition of the case," said the lawyer.

Norris hopes that the US government provides the defense team with the information needed to make an appropriate preparation for the re-sentence.

Goldstein said the judge should take into account the long term they have been in jail, the suffering of the two prisoners and their families, and also the recognition of the international community.

Meanwhile, Weinglass pointed out that the life imprisonments imposed on Antonio and Ramon could disappear, although he commented that he could not predict what the new sentences will be.

The lawyers said that Tony, Ramon, Fernando and Rene are concerned about Gerardo, who was sentenced to two life imprisonments, one of them for conspiracy to commit murder. Goldstein explained that the efforts that will be made will show that this charge is "totally absurd."

Mendez assured that within the arbitrariness and illegality of the case, the treatment Gerardo has received is the greatest injustice committed in the case of these five men.

Rene Gonzalez was not benefited by a re-sentence either. His lawyer, Phillip Robert Horowitz, said that his defendant is about to serve 15 long years in prison, where he has maintained, as well as the rest of the five Cuban prisoners, an excellent behavior.

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Cuban Website Slams US’ Cruel Treatment of One of the Cuban Five

HAVANA, Cuba, Aug 24 (acn) The US government is cruelly maltreating Gerardo Hernandez Cordelo, one of the five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters imprisoned in that country, according to a report posted on CubaDebate’s website.

Under the headline ¡Vaya manera de respetar el debido proceso! (What a way of respecting due process!), the article notes how the US administration deliberately chose the date to notify Gerardo’s wife, Adriana Perez, that she was denied, for the 10th time in 11 years, a visa to travel to the US to visit her husband in prison.

This year’s July 15th, the day of the 21st wedding anniversary of Gerardo and Adriana, she was informed by Washington's Interest Section in Havana that she was not allowed to enter the US.

Likewise, when the Supreme Court rejected the appeal to review the Cuban Five’s case that included Gerardo’s cause, the date for the announcement of such decision was also carefully chosen: June 4th, Gerardo’s birthday.

In a conversation with American journalist Saul Landau the Cuban prisoner said this treatment might be the way the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigations) found to take revenge for his position of refusing to betray Cuba.

“Depriving me of the possibility of seeing my wife is part of the same process; the interrogations, the offers for us to sell ourselves to them (FBI), the months in solitary confinement. But the plans the FBI or the administration could have had did not work out.”

Adriana has been granted only one visa in 11 years, during which she has periodically requested permission to enter the US. It turned out to be a bad joke from the Bush administration in 2002, reads the article.

“When she landed in the George Bush International Airport of Houston (Texas), she was welcomed by an FBI committee that took her fingerprints and interrogated her for 11 hours while depriving her from the right to have a lawyer or to request advice from her consular representation.”

“Afterwards, the committee revoked the visa and sent the young woman back to Cuba without letting her speak to her husband.”

In 2005 the US administration made fun of her again by denying the visa on the grounds that she was considered a possible immigrant.