The Untold Story of the Cuban Five (Part V)
Spies without espionage

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada — President of the National Assembly of People’s Power

• The first indictment in September 1998 charged the Cuban Five with being unregistered Cuban agents and with other minor violations. The government also charged three of them – Gerardo, Ramón and Antonio – with "conspiracy to commit espionage" (Count Two of the indictment).
The prosecution did not accuse any of them of espionage in itself for a very simple reason: no such thing existed and thus it could never be proven. The prosecution went even further. In the opening statement the jury was warned not to expect the revelation of any secrets or anything of the sort. The only thing that the prosecution had to do was to "convince" the members of the jury that the defendants were really bad people capable of conceiving an attempt to endanger the national security of the United States at some point in a hypothetical future. And, they argued, the defendants had to receive the severest punishment because they were really bad guys disrupting peace and tranquility in Miami. Remember Elian?
In order to achieve that objective, the prosecutors, notwithstanding what their own indictment stated, made the most inflammatory kinds of statements during the trial, accusing the Five of nothing less than trying "to destroy the United States" and reminding the frightened members of the jury that, if they failed to find them guilty, they would be "betraying the community."
The media took charge of the rest. It has always portrayed the Cuban Five as "spies" or as persons accused of being "spies." The media really exceeded itself in performing its task. It continued playing the same old tune even after the en banc Court of Appeals unanimously determined in September 2008 that there was no evidence that the accused had "gathered or transmitted secret information" or that they had damaged the national security of the United States, and thus it decided that the sentences for Charge 2 (conspiracy to commit espionage) were erroneous, vacated them and remanded Ramón and Antonio for re-sentencing (Eleventh Circuit Appeals Court, No. 01-17176, D.C Docket No. 98-00721-CR-JAL, Pp. 70-81). Nevertheless, even though the judges acknowledged that the same procedure should be applied to Gerardo, in an astounding act of judicial discrimination, the court refused to do so, adducing that one life sentence was already weighing against him.
In fact, it was very easy to realize that no secret or military information was involved in this case and that U.S. national security was never affected. That was what the Pentagon said, in clear and plain language before the trial started. That was the testimony, under oath, by Admiral (R) Eugene Carroll (Official transcripts Pp 8196-8301), Army General (R) Edward Breed Atkeson (Ibid Pp 11049-11199), Charles Elliot Wilhelm, general and former commander of the Southern Command (Ibid, Pp 11491-11547), Air Force Lieutenant General (R) James R. Clapper (Ibid, Pp 13089-13235).
Their testimonies were not secret, but were made voluntarily in open court. Probably a parade like that, of distinguished and decorated military chiefs supporting the innocence of some young Cuban revolutionaries had never happened before in a U.S. court of law. It didn’t make news outside of Miami, but the official transcripts of the trial are there for anybody to read.
Since the Cuban Five were sentenced there have been other cases whose outcomes are in sharp contrast with theirs. Let’s very briefly consider a few of them.
Khaled Abdel-Latif Dumeisi, accused of being an unregistered agent of Saddam Hussein’s government, was sentenced in April 2004, in the middle of the U.S. war on Iraq, to 3 years and 10 months imprisonment. 
In July 2007 Leandro Aragoncillo was found guilty of transmitting secret information on the national defense of the United States (approximately 800 classified documents) obtained from his office in the White House, where he worked as a military assistant to Vice Presidents Al Gore and Dick Cheney. Mr. Aragoncillo was sentenced to 10 years in prison while his co-conspirator Michael Ray Aquino received 6 years and 4 months.
Gregg W. Bergersen, a Defense Department analyst, was found guilty in July 2008 of providing national defense information to unauthorized persons in exchange for money and gifts and was sentenced to 4 years and 9 months in prison.
Lawrence Anthony Franklyn, a U.S. Air Force Reserves colonel working in the Defense Department, was found guilty of handing over classified and national defense information, including military secrets, to representatives of a foreign government, and was sentenced to 12 years and 7 months. But he never entered a federal prison. He was released on appeal and last May the Justice Department dropped the charges sustaining his case.
It goes without saying that none of the cases referred to above were tried in Southern Florida or involved any attempt to frustrate criminal plans.
The Cuban Five collectively received four life terms plus 77 years. They were not working in the White House, or in the Pentagon, or in the State Department. They never had nor sought access to any secret information whatsoever. But they did something unforgivable. They fought anti-Cuban terrorism and they did so in Miami.  •