independent lawyers)
2008-04-25.
Today, April the 25th, we commemorate five years since the unfair
detention of our Agramontista colleague from the Isle of Pines, Rolando
Jiménez Pozada.
Although his arbitrary detention took place a little more than a month
after the detention of the victims of the Black Spring of Cuba, the
treatment given to our colleague was totally different, because while
the latter were made victims of summary processes concluded with great
celerity (in less than three weeks), the treatment given to our fellow
professional, on the contrary, was characterized by extreme delay.
Even though the current procedural laws require a maximum term of six
months for the indictment in the preparatory phase, there was no formal
accusation against Jimenez Pozada until October 30, 2006: more than
three and a half years after his arbitrary arrest.
The trial took place on December 15, 2006. Rolando was not allowed to
assume his own defense during the trial in spite of the fact that the
Decree-Law No. 81 (On Law Practice) expressly grants lawyers such a
right. Unfortunately, that is not a novelty in Cuba, for other accused
Agramontista lawyers have also been denied the right to defend
themselves in their own criminal cases.
To this flagrant violation of the Law we must add the fact that Rolando
Jiménez Pozada was not allowed even to be present at his own trial,
because the acting court, in an arbitrary and hasty manner, ordered the
proceedings to be held without his presence. To sum it up: our colleague
did not have the real possibility of an effective defense.
That procedure ended with one additional abuse: the the Prosecutor (the
only accusing party) had asked for a penalty of six years in prison;
nevertheless, when the Court of Crimes against the State Security of the
City of Havana, committing a new violation of the Law, exercised great
delay in notifying Rolando of its judgment (111 days after the trial!),
the accused was able to understand the extreme cruelty of that organ: it
imposed him a total term of twelve years in prison!; that is, double
the sentence that the prosecutor had asked for!
On the basis of all those facts, we denounce that in the case of our
colleague Rolando Jiménez Pozada there has not been even a remote
resemblance with what should be a due process of law.
To the aforementioned facts we must add the abuses perpetrated against
him in the El Guayabo prison, in his native Isle of Pine (today "Isle of
Youth"), by the penitentiary authorities or with their connivance.
The more scandalous situation in this sense is that the jailers of our
colleague, even though they knew he had worked as a police officer in
drug related crimes, did not hesitate to confine him with a number of
traffickers against whom Jimenez Pozada, in discharging his duties, had
taken action.
As it should have been expected, those convicted common prisoners
jointly rushed our companion, and while some of them held him the others
savagely assaulted him, even using a wooden log that opportunely was
available to them. Our colleague suffered serious injuries, including
injuries to an eye, putting him in danger of losing. Rolando was later
punished to a solitary confinement cell.
During the time he has been in the Prison of El Guayabo, our colleague
has bravely denounced a series of threats proffered against him, as well
as different abuses committed in that place; to all that, the communist
authorities have never responded.
We, the independent lawyers of the Agramontista Current who sign the
present Declaration, living on either side of the Straits of Florida
(but who are all inseparable part of the Cuban Nation), denounce with
the utmost energy the veritable Calvary that our fellow lawyer and
peaceful freedom fighter is being forced to suffer by the Castros'
regime, and we demand for him, as well as for all the others Cuban
political prisoners, the solidarity of the lawyers and of all men and
women of good will throughout the world.
Stop the abuses against Rolando Jiménez Pozada and other prisoners of
conscience! Unconditional freedom for the Agramontista lawyer Rolando
Jiménez Pozada and for all the other Cuban political prisoners!
Havana-Miami, April 25th, 2008.
http://www.miscelaneasdecuba.net/web/article.asp?artID=15070
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