• A Federal Appeals Court on Wednesday upheld the convictions of the five Cuban anti-terrorists incarcerated in the United States since 1998, while vacating the sentences of three of them, who are to be re-sentenced in Miami, the only place they never should have been or should be tried.

The three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta issued a 99-page verdict in which it sends back to the same Miami court the cases of Ramón Labañino (life plus 18 years), Fernando González (19 years), and Antonio Guerrero (life plus 10 years). However, the sentences of Rene González (15 years) and Gerardo Hernández (double life plus 15 years) stand as they are.

The same Miami judge, Joan Lenard, now must convene a special hearing to issue new sentences. During all of the proceedings of the first rigged trial, Lenard displayed poor conduct and in 2001, passed the highly disproportionate sentences.

The Appeals Court ruled that arguments presented against the guilty verdict in the case of the Five lacked merit.

It is strange that this whole maneuver should come at a time when international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles is also seeking a legal deal for his reprieve. And that a judge should send a review of the Five’s case to Miami is another of the absurdities in this case.