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FLORIDA
JUSTICE
Discount for
terrorists
BY
JEAN-GUY ALLARD —Special for Granma
International—
IF
you’re on trial in South Florida then you’re
better off being a terrorist. This disquieting
assertion has once again proved to be true: very
recently an obliging judge (or was he simply
corrupt) gave infamous terrorist Antonio
"Tony" Calatayud — indicted on massive
fraud charges — 75% off the sum set for his bail.
Miami-Dade
County Judge José Rodríguez abruptly and
suspiciously reduced Calatayud’s bond from the
$200,000 originally set at the time of his arrest to
$50,000 USD, thanks to the pharmacy owner’s lawyer
arguing that his client had insufficient resources.
All
Florida knows perfectly well that a dramatic drop in
bond money for such a great crime is not common
practice and needs a certain amount of confidence
with the judiciary in exchange for a judge’s
benevolence.
A
commentary by Ed Griffith, spokesperson for the
Miami-Dade District Attorney’s office, turns out
to be even more dubious. Griffith noted that
Calatayud has lived in Florida for many years, has a
business and is no fugitive, as if his superiors had
only suddenly become aware of the fact the
businessman accused of fraud is also a well known
local mafia leader, radio commentator and, of late
an anti-Chávez activist.
However,
a few days earlier DA’s Charlie Crist and
Catherine Fernandez-Rundle took quite a different
tone. In addition to bringing to light Calatayud’s
many cowardly acts of fraud, including using some of
the most vulnerable citizens’ identities, they
firmly stated that arresting the criminal activist
was a warning that such practices would not be
tolerated in their state.
Calatayud,
63, swindled Medicaid out of $290,944 USD by forging
over 1,300 payment applications using the names of
underprivileged persons who, of course, never saw
the merchandise corresponding to their purchases.
A
felony charge of this magnitude is extremely serious
and could earn him 30 years in jail plus a $100,000
USD fine. Calatayud is simultaneously accused of
defrauding Medicaid, which could cost him various
years in prison and a fine of tens of thousands of
dollars.
The
pharmacy owner, not the pharmacist as the Miami
press would have it, also owns La Primera Farmacia
Latina, on 300 SW 107th Avenue in Miami. He lives in
a luxurious residence on 14232 SW 21 Terrace. It
doesn’t take much imagination to figure out that
he has considerable financial resources and could
take on board any important financial need.
Calatayud’s
terrorist activities have facilitated his entry and
exit from the United States, appearing and
disappearing on countless occasions. This does not
bode well for guaranteeing a Miami court that he
wouldn’t simply vanish before he was due to
appear.
A
GOODWILL EXPLANATION
The
miraculous judicial intervention can be explained by
Calatayud’s long record as a member of Florida’s
Cuban-American terrorist mafia and his importance as
one of its leaders.
In the
last edition, Granma International recounted
various conspiracies organized by RECE (another
Florida-based terror organization) in which he
participated, including the April 4, 1972 bombing of
the Cuban Trade Mission in Montreal, Canada, where
young Cuban diplomat Sergio Pérez Castillo died. He
also distinguished himself in 1973 when he planned,
organized and financed Joven Cuba (Young Cuba)
group’s attack on the Cuban Embassy in Paris
carried out on August 3. Terrorist Juan Felipe de la
Cruz was killed at the very moment he was activating
the bomb.
Moreover,
the web site www.antiterroristas.cu
cites declassified FBI document no. 105-304390 sent
by the Bureau’s office in Miami to its Washington
director on August 16, 1978. The report documents
terrorist actions by the so-called Coordination of
United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU in
Spanish), acknowledges Tony Calatayud as a CORU
member and notes that he’d fronted a meeting of
the group on August 2, 1977. According to the FBI
report, the meeting was held to organize actions and
collect funds to free Orestes Ruiz Hernández,
another terrorist. Hernández had been detained in
Mexico for murdering Cuban technician Artagñan Díaz
Díaz, on July 23, 1976, after the botched
kidnapping of a Cuban consular official in Mérida.
The
meeting took place at the offices of yet another
terrorist, Pedro Lucas Roig, one of Gaspar Jiménez
Escobedo’s right-hand men. At the time, Jiménez
was CORU’s second-in-command; he is now detained
in a Panamanian prison alongside Luis Posada
Carriles, Pedro Remón and Guillermo Sampoll, all
friends of swindler Calatayud.
And in
case the Florida judiciary has a short memory, in
1978 Calatayud was investigated in Miami for another
substantial fraud, that time at the expense of the
city’s "Aid to the Elderly" program.
In the
same city where Five Cuban patriots fought terrorism
and ended up as victims of harassment by the police
and a shameless rigged trial, it shouldn’t strike
anybody as out of the ordinary that a big-time
criminal, terrorist and murderer like Antonio
"Tony" Calatayud maintains certain
privileges. And the same goes for the hundreds of
individuals of the same ilk that belong to
South
Florida’s Cuban-American terrorist mafia and who
benefit from a total impunity to plot their villainy
against Cuba.
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--They
are trying to do the same in Atlanta as they did in Miami
THE recent
decisions by South Florida district judge Joan Lenard have
closed two legal channels in the attempt to secure justice for
the five Cubans imprisoned in the United States for
anti-terrorist activities. Now the appeal remains; it is due to
take place on April 7 at the 11th Circuit Court in Atlanta,
where the lawyers will present their briefs.
-- Judge
Lenard rejects the Five’s request for new trial
SOUTH Florida
district judge Joan Lenard has denied the request for a new
trial that was presented by Leonard Weinglass, lawyer for
Antonio Guerrero The request was based on evidence demonstrating
that numerous irregularities and violations occurred in the
Miami trial of the five Cubans imprisoned in the United States
since 1998, reads the www.antiterroristas.cu
website.
-- Response
to motion for retrial still pending
LEONARD
Weinglass, the U.S. attorney representing Antonio Guererro,
spoke with Antiterroristas.cu on Friday, January 17 in Havana,
where he spent a week reviewing the case of his client with
Cuban legal experts.
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