Cuban five : Justice aborted

 

 

In Havana, or for that matter all of Cuba, people call them “the five.” Their posters can be seen on the walls and their faces peer out of billboards on the entire stretch of the island. Just being remotely related with them assures anyone a celebrity status. Children from Kindergarten and beyond recognise them by their first names – Gerardo, René, Ramón, Fernando and Antonio. And they are members of no rock band.

They are men, who have been sentenced to prison terms for allegedly spying on the United States. Or that is what the US wants the world to believe. The group had been sent by the Cuban government to track down right-wing Cuban exiles in Miami, who were involved in terrorist activities in the island nation.

However, they were caught and are serving four life sentences and 75 years collectively, after being convicted by the US federal court in Miami, on June 8, 2001. As expected, they were erroneously accused by the US administration of committing espionage against the United States, and other correlated charges. During the hearing, the Five pointed out forcefully in their defence that they were involved in keeping an eye on the actions of Miami-based radical groups, in order to foil terrorist attacks on Cuba. And their actions were by no means directed at the US regime and they never harmed anyone or possessed or even used any weapons on US soil.

“This is laughable. On one hand, you talk about ‘Global War on Terror’ and on the other hand, you round up people, who are precisely doing that,” said famous Latin American jurist Juan Guzman, who is involved in the international campaign to release the Five, while talking to TSI.

For close to four decades now, anti-Cuba terrorist groups based in Miami have been involved in a number of terrorist activities against Cuba, or against everyone who campaigns for normalisation of affairs between the US and Cuba. According to several estimates, nearly 3,000 Cubans have died as a result of their actions.

The world watched in dismay when terrorist Luis Posada Carriles was released from jail in the US. Posada Carriles masterminded the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner, which killed 73 people, and a string of bombings of Havana hotels and nightclubs in 1997. Efforts to extradite him to Venezuela, where he is also wanted in the jetliner bombing, have failed. Radical groups in Miami like ‘Commandos F4’ and ‘Brothers to the Rescue’, function with absolute impunity from the US soil to attack Cuba – with the knowledge and occasional support of the FBI and the CIA. It was to contain them that Cuba decided to send them to Miami to monitor the activities of these radical groups. After several months of meticulous planning, the Five, or the Miami Five as they are called at times, managed to infiltrate the group and started sending warning about the imminent attacks.

However, the FBI arrested the Five on September 12, 1998, and held them in internment for 17 months in Miami jail. The seven-month-long trial was a virtual witch-hunt. Defence attorneys’ motions for a change of venue were declined on five occasions by the judge, although it was obvious that a fair trial was close to impossible in Miami. Finally, on June 8, 2001, the sentence was passed. However, on August 9, 2005, the Five won the right of appeal. A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the convictions of the Cuban Five and ordered a new trial outside Miami. However, in an unpredicted reversal on October 31, the 11th Circuit Court vacated the three-judge panel’s ruling and granted an “en banc” hearing before the full panel of 12 judges. The panel voted 10 to two to deny them a new trial.

The case still lingers on.