RICARDO Alarcón, president of the Cuban
Parliament, stated today (May 25) that the U.S.
government presented its brief in opposition to the
Supreme Court reviewing the case of the five Cuban
anti-terrorists incarcerated in that country last
weekend.
He added that the Five’s defense team has 10 days
to make its response in early June, followed – in
line with procedure – by a meeting of the Supreme
Court judges to decide whether the case will be
heard or not.
Alarcón explained that if the decision is
affirmative, that highest legal instance must reach
a verdict, within the current year, while noting
that the summer recess period must be taken into
account.
The Cuban leader reiterated his admiration for
the capacity for resistance demonstrated by the five
Cubans unjustly incarcerated in the United States,
particularly in relation to Gerardo Hernández,
sentenced to double life plus 15 years’ imprisonment.
He confirmed that the maximum security jail in
which Hernández is serving his sentence recently
imposed a lockdown on all the prisoners, including
the Cuban anti-terrorist, which has happened on
various occasions in the 10 years-plus that he has
been incarcerated.
The president of the National Assembly of
People’s Power was addressing cultural figures and
ambassadors from Arab nations and Russia invited to
the 15th Poetry Festival sponsored by the Cuban
Union of Writers and Artists (UNEAC), among them
Marcelino dos Santos, the Mozambican poet and great
friend of Cuba.
Alarcón was speaking at the monthly UNEAC event
commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Cuban
Revolution, during which he spoke of the
significance for his life of the January 1st triumph,
recalled the student struggle, the teaching of Raúl
Roa, and the period in which he himself worked in
New York as a diplomat.
"My work at that time was arguing, speaking for
and defending the principles of the Cuban Revolution,"
he affirmed, after revealing that he always wished
to write and has done so, while still not
considering himself a writer.
He paid tribute to the combatant Gerardo Abreu (Fontán),
an outstanding artist whose vocation was cut short
when he was killed by the Fulgencia Batista
dictatorship in 1958, and from whom he learned so
much about history, culture and revolution.
Translated by Granma International
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