Ramón Labañino
spends his birthday in the "hole"
• RAMÓN Labañino, one of the five
Cuban anti-terrorist fighters imprisoned in the
United States, celebrated his 47th birthday
yesterday (June 9) but remained in an isolation cell
where he has been confined since last April 27.
Labañino
is currently being held in a punishment cell at the
Kentucky maximum security penitentiary while
awaiting his transfer to a medium security prison.
The change is a result of being re-sentenced
to 30 years’ imprisonment by the Federal Court of
Miami last December, when a new sentence was also
handed down to Fernando González (17 years and nine
months).
Prior to that – in October 2009 –
Antonio Guerrero had his sentence reduced to 21
years and 10 months.
During a brief interview with Prensa
Latina, Labañino’s wife Elizabeth Palmeiro explained
that her partner is currently "being held in
isolation just as he was for the first 17 months
after his arrest in 1998."
This time "they have put him in the
‘hole’ claiming alleged security reasons surrounding
him, given that he cannot be together with the rest
of the prison population in a maximum security
prison if he is now classed as "medium security".
The issue is, she said, that while
they are deciding on where he is to be relocated,
"Ramón remains in the hole."
Labañino, González, Guerrero,
Gerardo Hernández and René González were arrested on
September 12, 1998 in Miami and later subjected to a
political trial that resulted in long and excessive
sentences.
The Five, as the world knows them,
infiltrated anti-Cuba terrorist organizations in
Florida and their crime was to expose terrorist
plots hatched against the Caribbean island from the
United States.
(With information from Prensa
Latina)
