Three of the Cuban Five await
resentencing in Miami
RAMÓN Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando
González are now being held in Miami’s Federal
Detention Center to attend a resentencing hearing
scheduled for October 13, the CubaDebate website
reports.
Before Joan Lenard, the same judge who condemned the
five Cuban antiterrorists to long and unjust
sentences in 2001, a jury will have to consider the
instructions from an appeals court — the 11th
Circuit in Atlanta — which said the “sentences were
incorrectly imposed” and thus annulled them.
According to the website antiterroristas.cu, since
Fernando, Ramón and Tony arrived at the Federal
Detention Center in Miami they have been kept in
solitary confinement, in the same unit where they
were held for the first 17 months following their
arrest in September 1998.
Meanwhile, the legal team defending the Five is
continuing the battle in the courts. According to
statements by the lawyers during a recent visit to
Havana, they hope that the life sentences will be
eliminated and the new sentences will be
“reasonable.”
However, what they are most concerned about is
Gerardo’s situation. No resentencing was ordered for
him — nor for René — and Gerardo is now serving two
life sentences for the unproven charge of
“conspiracy to commit murder.” Within the injustice
and illegality of this case, the treatment given
Gerardo has been even worse, defense layers agree.
As
stated many times by Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada,
president of the National Assembly of People’s
Power, the Five have remained in prison longer than
other people who have been sentenced for actual
espionage, and the resentencing should lead to their
immediate release, because they have already been
unjustly imprisoned for more than 10 years.
Translated by Granma International
