[News] Oral Arguments in Five case heard; decision may take months

[News at freedomarchives.org]

Posted on Wed, Mar. 10, 2004
Miami court hears case of `Cuban Five'
BY ANN W. O'NEILL AND VANESSA BAUZA
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - (KRT) - Known as the Cuban 5, the
convicted spy ring members are heroes at home and have
gained an international following in human rights and
left-leaning circles. "Free the Five!" say the Web sites,
petitions and full-page newspaper ads.

On Wednesday, the spies finally had the collective ear of
the three people who can give them their freedom - a panel
of appeals court judges in Miami.

Gerardo Hernandez Nordela, 38, Ramon Labanino Salazar, 40,
Antonio Guerrero Rodriguez, 45, Fernando Gonzalez Llort,
40, and Rene Gonzalez Sehwerert, 47, were convicted in June
2001 following a seven-month federal espionage trial. They
are serving terms from 15 years to life in federal prisons
across the country.

As members of what then was known as the Wasp Network, they
were convicted of failing to register as foreign agents and
conspiring to spy on U.S. military installations and the
Cuban exile community in South Florida.

Hernandez, the leader, also was convicted of
murder-conspiracy in connection with a 1996 Cuban missile
shoot-down of two Brothers to the Rescue planes that killed
four U.S. civilian fliers in international airspace off the
island.

Their supporters have long claimed the five are political
prisoners who were railroaded. In Cuba, they are lauded as
anti-terrorists and the Castro government has organized
massive rallies on their behalf. Even the smallest and most
remote Cuban village has a humble monument commemorating
the "five heroes."

Cuba is waiting for justice, said Miguel Alvarez, adviser
to the president of Cuba's National Assembly, Ricardo
Alarcon. The trial was unfair, he added, because "It was a
very politicized hearing meant to please those sectors in
Miami that carry out a radical policy against Cuba."

Labanino's wife, Elizabeth Palmeiro, is waiting hopefully
in Cuba. "I'm firmly convinced that when the American
people know what happened to our husbands and companeros
they will support this call for justice," she said.

Lawyers arguing on Wednesday before the 11th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals panel included Chicago 7 trial veteran
Leonard Weinglass. He claimed anti-Castro sentiment is so
virulent and engrained in Miami it was impossible to
empanel an objective jury. The convictions should be tossed
out, he added, because the trial could easily have been
moved 30 miles to the north, to Fort Lauderdale, where
attitudes about Cuba and Castro are less inflamed.

"Here," in Miami, "you have a community made of up half a
million people who have lost their homes, their businesses
and their livelihood to the government that sent the five
(to the United States)," Weinglass told the judges.

Even though the jury included no Cuban-Americans, "half a
dozen jurors, all non-Cuban, said they were afraid to sit
on this jury," Weinglass added. "Why? They were not afraid
of the defendants. They were afraid of their neighbors.
They were afraid of their co-workers. They were afraid of
the community."

In the years before the trial, passions in Miami were
inflamed by two incidents: The Cuban government's
shoot-down of the two Brothers to the Rescue planes and the
international custody battle over Elian Gonzalez.

Attorneys noted that less than a year before the trial
began, some 100,000 people took to the streets of Miami to
protest the U.S. government's decision to return Elian to
his father in Cuba.

Judge Stanley Birch, leading the panel, honed in on another
Weinglass argument: A year after the Cuban spy trial,
lawyers in the same U.S. Attorney's office cited prejudice
on Cuban issues as grounds to move a civil trial over the
government's raid to seize Elian.

The judges also grilled Assistant U.S. Attorney Caroline
Miller on what evidence linked Hernandez to a murder
conspiracy. She pointed to coded messages from Havana to
Hernandez to make sure agents didn't fly with Brothers to
the Rescue during the period when the planes were shot
down.

Assistant Federal Public Defender Richard Klugh argued it
would take "an extraordinary leap" for Hernandez to know
Havana's intentions. Klugh also argued that the life
sentences for Hernandez, Guerrero and Labanino were based
on espionage that revealed information already in the
public record. Its impact, he said, was "nothing more than
a flea on a pimple of the United States."

For Weinglass, the issue was location, location, location.

"Miami is not the villain of this piece," he told reporters
assembled at a news conference after the hearing. On a
table in front of him were stacks of petitions, with a
total of 50,000 signatures. Behind him was a banner with
the pictures of the five convicted spies.

"Miami is Miami. It is a city with its own history, a long
and difficult history. The trial should not have been in
this city. The U.S. government knew that. It selected this
city to exploit its ongoing difficulties."

The court's decision isn't expected for months.


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