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THE FIVE
Alarcón: “The Court has no alternative but to annul
‘Charge 3’ against Gerardo”
• Prosecutors admit there was no evidence for that
accusation but the judge sent it to the jury,
“because the prosecution itself had maintained it
for 7 months”
BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD—Special for
Granma International—
THE Court of Appeals in Atlanta
has no alternative but to annul Charge No. 3 in the
case of Gerardo Hernández, because the prosecution
itself admitted before that same court that the
available evidence was insufficient to convict him,
affirmed Ricardo Alarcón, president of the Cuban
Parliament.
That court “has to throw the
entire case (of the Five) into the trash bin and
free our compañeros, but legally, technically
speaking, its minimum obligation is to annul that
charge.”
The Cuban leader was speaking at
a ceremony where the Félix Elmuza Distinction of the
Cuban Journalists Union was awarded to Miami
activist Andrés Gomez.
Charge No. 3, “the one that most
inflames passions in Miami,” refers to the incident
of the light aircraft that were brought down after
penetrating Cuban airspace on February 24, 1996.
Gerardo Hernández and his compañeros were
arrested on September 12, 1998. Several charges were
then brought against him. However, it was only in
May of the following year that prosecutors presented
a new accusation including this charge demanded by
extremist Miami circles.
“I’m surprised that I have seen
no analysis in The New York Times, no study,
no statement by any U.S. jurist regarding this. The
thing is, they (the Atlanta Court judges) are the
only ones who have proof that that charge was false.
They have it in writing: the U.S. government put it
in their hands in May 2001.”
Alarcón explained that,
“stupidly, in order to serve the terrorist hysteria
of Miami,” the U.S. government lent itself to
accusing Gerardo Hernández of participating in the
aircraft incident.
The Cuban was then accused of
first-degree murder, with premeditation and malice,
“a crime that they know U.S. law does not pardon,”
he explained.
“Whoever is convicted of that has
no way out other than somebody telling the truth,
that that was a big lie. And who knows? The Court of
Appeals in Atlanta!”
In May 2001, he noted, the
prosecution lawyers at the Cubans’ trial “actually
stated that the available evidence was insufficient
to convict Gerardo Hernández, and thus, the jury
would absolve him.”
Judge Joan Lenard, however,
refused to withdraw the charge.
“She said it was too late, that
that was what they had said for seven months, and
that was how it should be presented before the
jury.”
The situation was so serious for
the prosecution that it presented an extraordinary
recourse... to the very Atlanta court that is now
reexamining the entire case.
On the first page of its
petition, the prosecution stated, literally, that
what it was doing “is something unprecedented.”
“Something that had never been
done in the history of the United States, in a
judicial system that claims to be based on
precedents,” emphasized Alarcón, noting that the
Atlanta judges must recall such a unique case.
“The 12 magistrates cannot have
forgotten... and if they have forgotten, it would be
good if a journalist, once in a while, reminded
them: that in May 2001, in writing, that was
explained to them, and they also decided not to
accede to the petition and to return the case as it
was to the jury, and the Miami jury found Gerardo
Hernández guilty of something that nobody was
accusing him of any longer.”
“Note the importance that that
should have for a rational mentality, legally
rational, not illiterate, a mentality that – I’m
sure – predominates in Atlanta,” he commented.
Incredibly, the 12 jury members
were capable of quickly deciding that Gerardo
Hernández was guilty of something for which there
was no evidence, he noted.
“Look at the trap: if there was
no evidence, they why did they charge him? We should
remind the very illustrious magistrates of Atlanta:
don’t forget! You have the evidence of that charge
being false, and the least you can do, aside from
everything else, is throw it out, annul it!”
Alarcón emphasized that the U.S.
Constitution says that a guilty finding must be
beyond any reasonable doubt: “More than reasonable
doubts, there is enormous doubt when the accuser
himself is saying that something is false and asking
for it to be revoked.”
The Cuban leader called for
maintaining the fight to free the Five until they
are all liberated: “Each one of them, and they
should be freed immediately, moreover, because they
are being held illegally, arbitrarily, after their
convictions were revoked.”
“In that battle, it makes us very proud to know that
not only are there many Cubans, many compatriots
here on the island, but also many outside of it,” he
said in saluting André Gómez, who has always been
one of the most active defenders of the Five in the
United States.
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