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Details revealed of
U.S. government efforts to deny the Cuban Five a
fair trial
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ON
August 20, a groundbreaking affidavit on behalf of
Gerardo Hernández, one of five Cubans unjustly
imprisoned in the United States for their anti-terrorist
activities, was filed in Federal District Court in
Miami, by attorney Martin Garbus. The renowned First
Amendment and civil rights attorney joined the
Five's legal defense team in April 2012.
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Gerardo
Hernández and his lawyer
Martin Garbus (PHOTO: Freethefive.org) |
The affidavit supports Hernández's
habeas corpus appeal and seeks the overturning of
his conviction, based on the government’s misconduct,
which included multi-million-dollar payments to
Miami journalists to create an environment hostile
to the Five during their trial.
Gerardo was sentenced to two life
terms plus 15 years, in prison, the most severe
sentence imposed on the group, which includes René
González, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and
Fernando González, all arrested in 1998 for
monitoring violent organizations based in Miami
which were carrying out attacks on Cuba.
According to Garbus, between 1998
and 2001 the Miami area was subjected to a barrage
of propaganda in the written press and over the
airwaves, paid for by the U.S. government, in order
to prejudice potential jurors.
Large sums of money, day after day,
produced more than a thousand articles and reports,
in an unprecedented effort to deny the Five a fair
trial, according to Grabus.
Reports were published and broadcast
in the Nuevo Herald, The Miami Herald,
the Diario las Américas, Radio/TV Martí and
WAQI (Radio Mambí), among others.
According to Gerardo’s lawyer, over
a span of only 194 days, the Nuevo Herald
published 806 articles negatively describing the
accused, while during the same period The Miami
Herald printed 305 others.
The two papers together disseminated
1,111 articles, an average of five a day.
Garbus questioned the choice of
journalists paid to generate an environment
prejudicial to the Five and why these individuals
chose to take the money.
The list of "independent"
journalists paid includes Pablo Alfonso, Humberto
Cortina, Julio Estorino, Carlos Alberto Montaner,
Olance Nogueras, Enrique Encinosa, Ariel Remos, Luis
Aguilar, Wilfredo Cancio, Helen Ferre, Caridad
Roque, Enrique Patterson and Alberto Muller.
Many of those cited have made a
career of participating in violent actions and
subversive activity against Cuba; in a few cases, as
open associates of the CIA.
Cortina is a veteran of the failed
U.S. mercenary invasion at Playa Girón, on the Bay
of Pigs, in April, 1961. Muller was in charge of
armed bands perpetrating terrorist attacks after the
Revolution, while Estorino, Montaner and Encinosa
were members of violent organizations, according to
the affidavit.
The sums paid by the government for
services rendered, range from $3,000 to tens of
thousands of dollars.
Despite the extensive evidence
submitted, procured through the Freedom of
Information Act, the U.S. government is resisting a
discovery process requested by the defense, to
reveal the exact number of journalists paid and the
funds dispensed.
What has been released is more than
enough, the defense states in its affidavit, to
support the demand to overturn Gerardo’s conviction.
(PL) •
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U.S. government
denies Gerardo’s rehearing petition
WASHINGTON.—On
July 6, the District Attorney’s Office for the state
of Florida informed the Miami Court of its
opposition to the petition presented by Martin
Garbus, the lawyer representing Gerardo Hernández
Nordelo, asking for a rehearing of the case and the
release by the government of additional evidence in
order to investigate the issue of journalists paid
with federal money to create, before and after the
trial of the Cuban Five, what the 2005 Court of
Appeal panel described as a perfect storm of
prejudice and hostility.
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René González:
new motion filed
WASHINGTON,
June 26.—ON June 22, René González Sehwerert’s
lawyers re-filed a motion with the Florida Southern
District Court, Miami Division, requesting that his
conditions of supervised release be modified and
that he be allowed to return to Cuba, where his
family is resident, the antiterroristas.cu. website
reports.
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From prison
WE visited Gerardo Hernández for the
fifth time and, as usual, his spirits seemed higher
than ours despite the fact that he resides in a
maximum-security federal prison.
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