Complete Information on this case can be found at NATIONAL COMMITTEE TO FREE THE CUBAN FIVE
From Prensa Latina:Weinglass: Cuban Five Owed Apology
Defense council Leonard Weinglass stressed Wednesday that yesterday´s overthrow of the Miami court decision which unfairly jailed five Cubans was a major victory and that they deserve an apology.
In a telephone conversation he said from his office in New York that the 93-page ruling by a three judge panel of the Atlanta appeals court places them in the same situation before they entered the Miami courtroom, and that the gratifying verdict is so strongly in their favor no lawyer would think they should enter again.
By a unanimous vote, the judges of the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta overturned Tuesday the verdict handed down on them by a Miami court in June 2001, and also ruled that a new trial should take place, as requested by the defense, in a city other than Miami.
According to the ruling, the volatile anti-Cuban political climate and intense media coverage, both amplified in the wake of the Elián González drama, made a fair trial in Miami an impossibility.
The defense attorneys had asked Miami Judge Joan Lenard to move the trial out of Miami in January, 2000.
After a trial legal analysts considered was a frame-up, the Cuban Five, Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, René González, and Fernando González, detained in 1998 on several spying charges, were sentenced by Judge Lenard to harsh jail terms, including double life in prison for one of the defendants.
Actually, they just were gathering information on anti-Cuban terrorist plots in Miami in an effort to thwart violent actions that would also affect US citizens.
Hernández, Labañino and Guerrero received life sentences from Lenard, who added a second life imprisonment for Hernández. René González was sentenced to 15 years in prison and Fernando González to 19 years behind bars.
The Atlanta ruling comes less than a month after a UN panel ruled that the detention of the five men was arbitrary and in violation of international law.
The judgment came from the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, part of the Geneva-based UN Commission on Human Rights.
But "this is a political issue," Attorney Weinglass warned, voicing fear over a possible appeal by the US government prosecutors in an effort to delay the process, and said his team is reviewing appropriate steps for bail.
When asked if he supported Cuban Parliament Chairman Ricardo Alarcon´s demand for their immediate release, he agreed, lamenting the fact that "They´ve already done seven years."
In remarks to the media in Caracas, Venezuela, where he is attending the World Youth Festival, Alarcon hailed the ruling as "a victory against those who promote terrorism, against hypocrites who tout a supposed war on terror and in reality protect terrorists and jail young men who only acted to oppose terrorism in the United States."
Amid a flurry of calls, the defense lawyer took time to comment on the future of his famous case, saying "the next step is up to the US government. They have 21 days to decide whether or not to take the case to the full circuit court."
Massive protests on the island, deep-seated support from the international community and a considerable amount of backing from US people may have finally brought about an ethical judicial decision.
Gloria La Riva, coordinator of the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, was quoted on freethefive.org as saying, "This is a huge victory! We are ecstatic about this decision. It confirms that the five Cubans are completely innocent, as we always knew they were."
These victims of lawlessness have spent the better part of a decade languishing in US jails, two of them without seeing their families, and as Weinglass says, "instead of a retrial they deserve an apology from the US governemt and be sent home."
From Granma (Cuba): Atlanta Court overturns the Five’s convictions and sentences
BY GABRIEL MOLINA
ON August 9 a Federal Appeals Court unanimously revoked the convictions of guilt and life sentences imposed on the five Cubans accused of espionage, affirming that they did not have a fair trial in Miami die to the prejudices of the community and the extensive publicity around the case.
In the face of the finding of the Appeals Court and the UN Panel, Ricardo Alarcón, president of the National Assembly, informed Granma International that what the U.S. government should do now is simply, to release them.
“It is a very important decision,” Alarcón added, “because it is what we have been saying for all these years, both the accused and their defense lawyers and all the solidarity groups in the world created in recent years. The conviction and sentence have been overturned and a new trial ordered. This is what the Atlanta Court of Appeals has decided.
“It is very important because it implies an acknowledgement that it was an invalid legal process, which has violated a series of fundamental legal rulings, including perhaps, the most obvious one: that this entire judicial farce was made against five anti-terrorist combatants who were accused of fighting Miami terrorist groups and were forced to stand trial in Miami. That was an extremely grave violation on the part of the judge and moreover, supreme evidence of the way in which the government of the United States acted, because as the judges acknowledged in their finding of today, just one year later the same government stated that there could not be an impartial trial in Miami on any Cuba-related issue.
“I believe that, in essence, the decision is fundamentally in line with a basic point made by the defense. Nobody can now say that our total condemnation of the legal procedure as false, as full of prejudice, was without any foundation, that it was even outside the realm of justice, including U.S. justice and that from a strictly technical U.S. point of view, the least that they would have to do is to overturn it and organize a retrial, and that was what the judges decided. Now it is the turn of the United States to respond. The response is very simple.
“A few days ago a group of UN experts determined that the arrest of these five Cubans and the whole legal procedure had been arbitrary and contrary to the law. To be deprived of one’s freedom against the law is kidnapping. Now a U.S. court has also ruled that what the U.S. government did against those persons was not legal, and for that reason overturned it and ordered a new trial, so that justice is done. What the U.S. government should do immediately is to release them.
“If they want to charge them with something else, let them charge them, let them present evidence, let them find an impartial court to try five men who are currently kidnapped and should be released. It is very important now to ensure that the major international media discover the news. I told CNN, let the people of the United States know the truth; it was for some reason that the three judges said what they said today; it was for some reason that the five UN experts said what they are saying today; let the U.S. people know the truth, let the people know the truth, the facts, what the parties stated in that trial, to see what conclusion the people reach.
“I do not have the slightest doubt that any honest and honorable person who analyzes this case will reach the same conclusion. The U.S. judges have just done so. My respect to them, they are eminent jurists in the United States, with a lengthy curriculum, and they have ruled in the only way that any honorable person could do, the same as the people of the United States will do when the monopolies that exercise hegemony over the media in that country allow it, knowing the truth, enjoying the First Amendment, which is what grants the right to information.”
COURT ACCEPTED THE DEFENSE ARGUMENTS
The panel of three judges at the Atlanta Court of Appeals ordered a new trial having accepted the defense lawyers’ arguments in terms of the guilty verdict in 2001.
None of the jury members were Cuban, but the lawyers had objected to the trial on the grounds of defects in its form and content.
Federal judges have not initially commented on the appeals court decision.
Moreover, the Atlanta judges overturned the conviction of conspiracy to commit homicide against Gerardo Hernández, who was sentenced to two life terms for also being charged with the death of four men who violated Cuban airspace in a light aircraft brought down by a Cuban Air Force MiG in 1996.
The five heroes were convicted in June 2001 having been found guilty of acting as non-registered agents of a foreign government and other charges.
The Five admitted to having been agents of the Cuban government and bravely stated that they had infiltrated terrorist groups but not agencies of the U.S. government.
Their defense lawyers also argued that the principal task of the agents was to frustrate the action of gangs backing acts of terrorism against Cuba, including a series of attacks in Havana in 1997 in which one tourist died and a further 12 people were injured.
From March 10 last year, three U.S. judges were appointed by the 11th Circuit of the Atlanta Court of Appeals to review the case of Gerardo Hernández, René González, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando González.
After close to 17 months and reviewing a large volume of statements, the judges unanimously ruled to overturn the sentences of the Five – as they are known in the international campaigns for their release.
The Five were detained in September 1998, and after 17 months in solitary confinement were subjected to a trial plagued with irregularities in Miami.
In line with the sentences revoked this August 9, Gerardo was serving double life plus 15 years’ imprisonment; Ramón and Antonio, life terms plus 18 years imprisonment for the former and 10 for the latter; Fernando, 19 years’ imprisonment; and René, 15 years.
From AIN - Cuban News Agency: Cuba Reviews Atlanta Court Ruling on Cuban Five
Havana, Aug 11 (AIN) Immediate freedom for the Cuban Five is the only just and ethical recourse after they have spent nearly seven years in prison for crimes they never committed, coincided panelists on Wednesday evening's The Round Table program.
On Tuesday, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals of Atlanta made public its ruling that the convictions against Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez were null and void since they never received a fair and impartial trail.
Legal experts sitting in on the televised Round Table noted that the news about the unanimous court decision continues to have an impact in the international media, making Cubans and the members of 246 Free the Five groups in 82 nations very happy.
The Cuban Five were arrested by the FBI in 1998, and in 2001, after a biased and highly politicized trial in Miami, were sentenced to prison terms ranging from life in prison for three of them to 19 and 15 years for the other two defendants.
Leonard Weinglass, the defense lawyer for Antonio Guerrero, was interviewed by telephone. When asked what's next, he explained that the prosecution has 21 days to appeal the Atlanta court decision, and if they do so, and the court accepts the appeal, a decision could take many months.
Otherwise, if the prosecution feels its still has a case, a date must be set to begin a new judicial process against the five men who dedicated their lives to fighting terrorism.
However, the attorney emphasized that instead of a new trial the Cubans should be set free and that they and the people of Cuba should receive an apology for the injustice suffered.
Roberto Gonzalez, the brother of Cuban Five member Rene, and himself a lawyer, clarified several procedural aspects of US law, and highlighted that the three judges made an ethical decision. Now, he said it is necessary to make the final impulse to obtain the liberty of the Cubans.
Richard Klugh, the defense lawyer for Fernando Gonzalez, stated in a telephone interview that besides the prosecution's decision on whether to appeal or seek a new trial the court would have to decide on whether to free to Cuban Five on bail.
Dr Julio Fernandez Bulte, a well-known Cuban law professor, affirmed that the judicial elements cited and the decision of the three judges was rigorous and professional. He noted the sharp contrast to the frivolous and superficial way in which the Miami court dealt with the case involving 24 charges against the Five.
Fernandez Bulte stated that an appeal by the prosecution would not be viable since the reasons for revoking the convictions and ordering a new trial were overwhelming. He insisted though that justice is yet to be done, because the five have still not been pronounced not guilty, adding that this is the moment to intensify the struggle for their freedom.
Another distinguished Cuban legal expert, Professor Rodolfo Davalos recalled that what was really under review by the appeals court was the legitimate exercise of the constitutional rights of the defendants to a defense and a fair trial. He said the judges verified the long list of arbitrary actions against them that took place before, during and after the trial.
Jose Pertierra, a Washington based lawyer, explained that the prosecutor has the option to drop the charges and set the Cuban Five free, but he voiced the opinion that for political reasons, it is probable that they will insist on holding another trial. Pertierra added that if the case is tried in a city free of the prejudices that contaminate Miami, the prisoners will be absolved because of the weak evidence against them.
In southern Florida the reaction to the court decision from Cuban-American members of Congress and the leaders of organizations with a long standing record of terrorist activities against the island was of anger and deception.
The fact that the heavily manipulated trial against the Cuban Five cost taxpayers 20 million dollars has been highlighted by several observers, who also commented that a similar figure could be required to cover the cost of a new trial at a different venue.
Miami resident Andres Gomez, president of the Antonio Maceo Brigade, congratulated the Cuban people for the favorable court decision and he especially praised those in southern Florida who have been active in the struggle for the Five's freedom.
Gomez affirmed on the panel that when the decision of the appeals court makes reference to the hostile environment of Miami, they are not talking about the entire population of that city, but specifically the ultra rightwing segment that creates an environment of terror and falsely presents itself as representing the whole Cuban-American community.
Maria E. Guerrero, Antonio's sister, described the phone call with her imprisoned brother after the ruling, during which in a very emotional way he urged her to be patient and have faith that justice will prevail. Antonio Guerrero expressed gratitude for the work of the defense attorneys and for the solidarity
shown by the Cuban people.
At the end of The Round Table, Cuban TV broadcast excerpts from the solidarity meeting with the Cuban Five that took place Wednesday in Venezuela, where the 16th World Festival of Youth and Students is taking place.
From the Miami Herald: Court overturns spy verdicts
A federal appeals court on Tuesday threw out the convictions of five accused Cuban spies, finding that the volatile mix of Miami's anti-Castro political climate and intense media coverage -- both amplified in the wake of the Elián González drama -- made a fair trial in the city an impossibility.
The decision by a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals means that the five Miami men -- convicted in June 2001 of infiltrating Miami's exile community and trying to pass U.S. military secrets to Havana -- will have a new trial. But not in Miami.
In its 93-page opinion, the court found the six-month trial was hopelessly inundated with news coverage and public protests, while the community was already saturated with stories about the Elián case, an immigration agent charged with spying for Fidel Castro and local bans on doing business with Cuba.
The court also said prosecutors made improper comments during the trial, as did José Basulto, the founder of Brothers to the Rescue, who implied from the witness stand that one of the defense lawyers was a Cuban agent.
''A new trial was mandated by the perfect storm created when the surge of pervasive community sentiment and extensive publicity both before and during the trial merged with the improper prosecutorial references,'' the court said.
But at least one juror said she didn't feel nearly as pressured by anti-Castro sentiment as the appeals court believed.
''As far as I'm concerned, the verdict we reached had nothing to do with the community. The verdict we reached was because of the evidence presented to us,'' Omaira Garcia said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
''I felt no pressure at all, and I'm sure the other jurors didn't either,'' said Garcia, a legal assistant.
Lawyers for the defendants -- Gerardo Hernández, Fernando González, Antonio Guerrero, René González and Ramón Labañino -- cheered the ruling, praising the court for taking a position that would no doubt be unpopular in Miami.
''I have new faith in the court of appeals and the system of laws,'' said Paul McKenna, who represented Hernández. ``The trial was infected with prejudice from the beginning to the end.''
The defense lawyers first asked U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard to move the trial out of Miami in January 2000 and said Fort Lauderdale would be a better venue.
At the time, the federal government was seeking to send 6-year-old rafter Elián González back to Cuba to live with his father, raising a furor in Miami's Cuban-American community.
GOVERNMENT CASE
The verdict in the spy trial was undone in part by the government's stance in a separate civil case that spun out of the Elián case: Defending an employment lawsuit brought by immigration agent Ricardo Ramirez, government lawyers said they could not get a fair trial in Miami. They said the community had become too polarized after the INS raid that sent Elián back to Cuba.
Defense lawyers for the accused spies then used the government's pleadings to persuade the appeals court that it was unfair to hold the spy trial in Miami as well.
Former U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis, whose office dedicated thousands of hours and millions of dollars to its pursuit of the accused spies, said the trial judge went to great lengths to make sure the trial was fair.
''I think the court is wrong,'' said Lewis, now a lawyer in private practice. ``What they are saying is that you can't get a fair trial here in South Florida.''
Federal prosecutors did not comment on Tuesday's decision, though they are certain to pursue a retrial of the five men, who were convicted of 23 spying-related charges.
After their convictions, Hernández, Labañino and Guerrero all received life sentences from Lenard. Hernández was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder for his alleged role in the 1996 shooting by Cuban fighters of two Brothers to the Rescue planes over international waters. Four people died in the shooting.
René González, a pilot accused of faking his defection to insinuate himself into Brothers to the Rescue, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Fernando González, no relation, was convicted of trying to infiltrate the offices of Cuban-American politicians and shadowing prominent exiles, including one-time accused airplane bomber Orlando Bosch; González was sentenced to 19 years.
The five men were arrested in 1998 as U.S. agents dismantled a Cuban spy network called La Red Avispa, the Wasp Network. Prosecutors said the ring infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue and other Miami-area exile groups, spreading disinformation and spying for Castro. Some were also accused of trying to gather intelligence about the U.S. military; Guerrero was a laborer at the Boca Chica Naval Air Station near Key West.
DISCS SEIZED
The FBI seized coded computer disks containing 2,000 messages among the defendants and their handlers in Havana, prosecutors said. Federal agents also found shortwave radio messages from Cuba warning that René Gonzalez and another pilot should not fly with the Brothers around the time of the shoot-down.
Defense lawyers essentially conceded that the five were working on behalf of the Cuban government but said they were simply trying to protect their homeland from exile groups and did not try to gather military secrets.
Tuesday's court ruling dismayed many in Miami's Cuban community, especially the relatives of the pilots from Brothers to the Rescue, an organization that flew small planes across the Florida Straits in search of rafters fleeing Cuba.
`DISAPPOINTED'
''We are extremely disappointed,'' said Maggie Alejandre Khuly, whose brother, Armando Alejandre Jr., was one of those shot down on Feb. 24, 1996. ``I sat at the trial every day, and I don't think I saw any miscarriage of justice. But we firmly believe and respect the American justice system.''
Basulto said he didn't believe there was any undue influence on the jurors, none of whom were Cuban American.
''I'm very disappointed in their decision. They were convicted by a jury of their peers,'' he said. ``If they are retried, they will again be found guilty.''
But the court found that, in some cases, if the climate outside the courthouse is too hostile, ``it is unnecessary to prove that local prejudice actually entered the jury box.''
McKenna said he will try to get Hernández released on bail after seven years in custody. And the San Francisco-based National Committee to Free the Cuban Five said it would ask the Justice Department to allow the wives of Hernández and René González to travel from Cuba to the United States to visit their spouses.
Olga Salanueva, wife of prisoner René González, told Cuban broadcasters that she was overjoyed, according to the Associated Press. ''It's been many years since I've received such good news,'' she said.
DECISION CHEERED
In Cuba, where the five men have been portrayed as heroic patriots since their arrest in 1998, the court's decision was hailed.
''This is a victory against those who promote terrorism, against hypocrites who tout a supposed war on terror and in reality protect terrorists and jail young men who only acted to oppose terrorism in the United States,'' National Assembly speaker Ricardo Alarcon told Agence France-Presse. He called on the U.S. government to free the five men from prison.
The court's ruling comes less than a month after a U.N. panel ruled that the detention of the five men was arbitrary and in violation of international law. The judgment came from the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, part of the Geneva-based U.N. Commission on Human Rights.
It found the five were denied full access to evidence and to their lawyers, but a senior State Department official told The Herald at the time that the ruling was a ''politically motivated'' maneuver orchestrated by the Cuban government.
State Department officials did not comment on Tuesday's federal appeals ruling, calling it ``a judicial and law enforcement matter.''
Some in Miami found the federal appeals court's language condescending and insulting.
The court concluded it's ruling by praising the ''traditional values'' of the Cuban-American community and saying: ``We trust that any disappointment with our judgment in this case will be tempered and balanced by the recognition that we are a nation of laws in which every defendant, no matter how unpopular, must be treated fairly.''
''We are sensitive about Cuban issues, that's true, but this is insulting to exiles,'' said Manny Vazquez, an attorney for the Cuban American National Foundation. ``We are a peaceful community, and yes, we want a change in government in Cuba, but we want it in a peaceful way.''
From AFP: US court orders retrial of convicted Cuban spies
A US appeals court has ordered a retrial for five Cubans convicted in 2001 of spying on the United States for the communist government in Havana, their attorneys said Tuesday.
Antonio Guerrero Rodriguez, Fernando Gonzalez Llort, Gerardo Hernandez Nordelo, Ramon Labanino Salazar and Rene Gonzalez Sehwerert were arrested in September 1998 in southern Florida.
They were accused of monitoring US military installations, including the US Southern Command headquarters and a Key West air base, and infiltrating Cuban-American exile groups.
The five were sentenced to lengthy prison sentences after they were found guilty of spying.
Cuba has admitted they were Cuban agents but said they were only spying on Cuban-American exiles in Miami plotting against Cuba, not on the United States.
In Havana, National Assembly speaker Ricardo Alarcon hailed Cuba's "victory" as a US appeals court ordered a retrial for the five convicted Cubans.
"This is a victory against those who promote terrorism, against hypocrites who tout a supposed war on terror and in reality protect terrorists, and jail young men who only acted to oppose terrorism in the United States," Alarcon told AFP.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled that "the pervasive community prejudice against (Cuban President) Fidel Castro and the Cuban government and its agents and the publicity surrounding the trial and other community events combined to create a situation where they were unable to obtain a fair and impartial trial.
"We agree, and reverse their convictions and remand for a retrial. Our consideration of a motion for change of venue requires a review of the totality of the circumstances surrounding the trial."
The case has been one of many sources of tension between Cuba, the only communist-ruled country in the Americas, and the United States.
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