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Saturday, March 22, 2008

Cuba releases ailing political prisoner

Cuba releases ailing political prisoner
Published on Friday, March 21, 2008

HAVANA, Cuba (AFP): Cuba has freed a Cuban-American political dissident
for health reasons, a human rights activist said Thursday, adding that
he was the 10th dissident released in Cuba so far this year.

Adalberto Ramos Monteagudo "was released from jail ... because he
suffers from prostate and bladder cancer and his condition is very
delicate," Cuban Human Rights and National Reconciliation Committee
member Elizardo Sanchez told AFP.

Ramos was sentenced in 1991 to 24 years behind bars for illegally
entering Cuba bearing weapons, under orders from the Miami-based,
anti-Castro National Insurrection Directory group.

Fellow conspirator Alexis Lozano was sentenced together with Ramos, but
was later released for undisclosed reasons and allowed to return to the
United States, Sanchez said.

Ramos, he added, has chosen to remain in Cuba.

Sanchez said Ramos was is the 10th political prisoner to have been freed
so far this year from Cuban jails, where his group calculates more than
230 political prisoners still linger.

Cuba earlier this year swore in a new president, Raul Castro, brother of
Fidel Castro, who retired at 81 in poor health after ruling the country
for nearly 50 years.

http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/news-6751--5-5--.html

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