By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ
AP Hispanic Affairs Writer
MIAMI (AP) -- Cuban exiles said Monday they were relieved the Supreme
Court refused to review the convictions of five intelligence agents for
the communist country, despite calls from Nobel Prize winners and
international legal groups to consider the case.
The convictions stand against the so-called "Cuban Five," who maintain
they did not receive a fair trial because of strong anti-Castro
sentiment in Miami. The men have been lionized as heroes in Cuba. Exile
groups say they were justly punished.
The five -- Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino (aka Luis Medina), Rene
Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando Gonzalez (aka Ruben Campa) --
were convicted in 2001 of being unregistered foreign agents. Three also
were found guilty of conspiracy to obtain military secrets from the U.S.
Southern Command headquarters.
Hernandez was convicted of murder conspiracy in the deaths of four
pilots, members of the Miami-based Brothers to the Rescue organization,
who were shot down by Cuban fighter jets in 1996 off the island's coast.
The group sought to identify and help migrants leaving Cuba by sea. The
Cuban government maintains the planes violated its airspace to scatter
political pamphlets over the island.
Richard Klugh, a Miami-based attorney for the five, said he was
disappointed. He and other attorneys were reviewing their options.
Brothers to the Rescue President Jose Basulto, the sole survivor of the
shooting, said the Supreme Court did the right thing.
"Those four young men didn't deserve to die like that," said Basulto, a
veteran of the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. "Fine, I'm a sworn
enemy of Cuba, but those men weren't."
Basulto said the Cuban government relies on spies like the Cuban Five --
and most recently retired State Department officer Walter Kendall Myers
and his wife -- for information it can use or trade. The Myerses were
arrested June 4 in Washington on charges they spied for Havana for three
decades.
"This is a business they have," Basulto said. "If you're a spy, you're a
spy. You've got to pay the consequencnes."
In 2005, a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Atlanta
initially reversed the convictions, agreeing the trial should have been
moved from Miami because the defendants couldn't get a fair trial there.
The full 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the convictions.
But new sentences were ordered for Guerro and Medina, both of whom are
serving life sentences, as well as Fernando Gonzalez. A judge is
expected to re-sentence them in the coming months.
Hernandez is serving a life term, while Rene Gonzalez has about two
years left on a 15-year sentence.
Hernandez said in a statement released through the Cuban government
Monday that he was not surprised by the decision.
"Now I have no doubt that our case has been, from the beginning, a
political case, not only because we have all the legal arguments for the
Court to review it, but also because we have growing international
support," he said.
U.S. Rep. Eliana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, also said she was pleased with
Monday's ruling.
"Let this be a lesson to those who continue to spy for the Cuban regime,
and other state sponsors of terrorism -- justice will be done," she said
in a statement.
Defense lawyers maintain the men were trying to gather information to
prevent exile groups from waging more attacks such as the bombings at
Havana hotels that killed an Italian tourist in 1997. In Cuba, their
photos appear in billboards and on posters in hotels.
Ten Nobel Prize winners, including Guatemalan human rights activist
Rigoberta Menchu and German author Gunter Grass, as well as lawyers and
advocates from more than a dozen countries, had urged the high court to
intervene.
Ricardo Alarcon, head of Cuba's largely ceremonial parliament, rejected
the high court's decision, saying in a statement that its "judges did
what the Obama Administration asked them."
The ruling "shows one more time the arbitrariness of a corrupt and
hypocritical court system and its cruel brutality toward our Five
Heroes," the statement said.
Even in Miami, not everyone was pleased.
Andres Gomez, head of a coalition of Cuban-American groups that favor
normalizing relations with the island, said the U.S. must repudiate past
efforts to overthrow the country's communist government to renew
dialogue with Cuba. Releasing the Cuban Five would help, he said, noting
President Barack Obama has the power to pardon them.
However, such a step looks unlikely. The Obama administration has
contended the convictions were fairly won.
------
Associated Press Writer Will Weissert contributed to this story from Havana.
The Hays Daily News (16 June 2009)
http://www.hdnews.net/apnationstory/a0961-BC-US-SupremeCourt-Cuba-3rdLd-Writethru-06-15-0888
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