Cuban Five
Encyclopedia
The Cuban Five, also known as the Miami Five (Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González) are five Cuba
n intelligence officers convicted
in Miami of conspiracy to commit espionage
, conspiracy
to commit murder
, and other illegal activities in the United States
. The Five were in the United States to observe and infiltrate the Cuban-American groups Alpha 66
, the F4 Commandos, the Cuban American National Foundation, and Brothers to the Rescue
, as well as the US Southern Command.
At their trial, evidence was presented that the Five infiltrated the Miami-based Cuban exile
group Brothers to the Rescue, obtained employment at the Key West Naval Air Station in order to send the Cuban government reports about the base, and had attempted to penetrate the Miami facility of US Southern Command. On February 24, 1996, two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft were shot down by Cuban military jets in international airspace while flying away from Cuban airspace, killing the four US citizens aboard. One of the Five, Gerardo Hernández, was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder for supplying information to the Cuban government which according to the prosecution led to the shootdown. The Court of Appeals
has, however, reversed the conviction on the conspiracy to commit murder, since there is no evidence that Hernández knew the shootdown would occur in international airspace.
For their part, Cuba acknowledges that the five men were intelligence agents, but says they were spying on Miami’s Cuban exile community, not the U.S. government. Cuba contends that the men were sent to South Florida in the wake of several terrorist bombings in Havana
allegedly masterminded by anti-communist militant Luis Posada Carriles
, a former Central Intelligence Agency
operative.
The Five appealed their convictions and the alleged lack of fairness in their trial has received substantial international criticism. A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta overturned their convictions in 2005, citing the "prejudices" of Miami’s anti-Castro Cubans, but the full court later reversed the five's bid for a new trial and reinstated the original convictions. In June 2009 the US Supreme Court declined to review the case. In Cuba, the Five are viewed as national heroes and portrayed as having sacrificed their liberty in the defense of their country.
Rene Gonzalez was released in October 2011.
exile groups such as Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations
(CORU), Alpha 66
, and Omega 7
. In a 2001 report by Cuba's Permanent Mission to the United Nations
, the Cuban government cataloged 3,478 deaths as a result of "terrorism", "aggression", "acts of piracy and other actions". The events cited span the course of four decades and pertain to attacks such as the bombing of Cubana Flight 455
by men trained by the Central Intelligence Agency
, the CIA-supported Bay of Pigs invasion
, and the War Against the Bandits
between the government and anti-communist
rebels in the Escambray Mountains
(see also Operation Mongoose]). As a result, the Cuban government had long sought to combat these groups. Their efforts include the use of spies sent to operate in the US. The Federal Bureau of Investigation
and other U.S. organizations had been monitoring the activities of Cuban spy suspects for more than 30 years.
(FBI) dismantled with 10 arrests in 1998. According to Gerardo Hernández, the leader of the cell
, and as reported by Saul Landau
in the political magazine CounterPunch
, the network observed and infiltrated a number of Cuban-American groups: Alpha 66
, the F4 Commandos, the Cuban American National Foundation, and Brothers to the Rescue
. The court found that they had infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based organization that flew small aircraft over the Florida straits in efforts to rescue rafters fleeing Cuba, and had on some flights intentionally violated Cuban airspace and dropped leaflets. They obtained employment as laborers at the Key West Naval Air Station and sent the Cuban government detailed reports about the movement of aircraft and military personnel, and descriptions of the layout of the facility and its structures. They also attempted to penetrate the Miami facility of Southern Command, which plans and oversees operations of all US military forces throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. On February 24, 1996, two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft were shot down by Cuban military jets in international airspace while flying away from Cuban airspace, killing four US citizens aboard. The US government also accused the remaining four of lying about their identities and sending 2,000 pages of unclassified information obtained from US military bases to Cuba. The network received clandestine communications from Cuba via the Atención numbers station.
US government organizations, including the FBI, had been monitoring Cuban spy activities for over 30 years, but made only occasional arrests. However, after the two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft were shot down by Cuban MiG
s in February 1996 and four US citizens were killed, on the basis of information sent to Cuba by an infiltrator of the group, the Clinton administration launched a crackdown. According to US attorney José Pertierra, who acts for the Venezuelan government in its attempts to extradite Luis Posada Carriles
, the crackdown was aided by the cooperation of the Cuban authorities with the FBI in 1997. The Cubans provided 175 pages of documents to FBI agents investigating Posada Carriles's role in the 1997 bombings in Havana, but the FBI failed to use the evidence to follow up on Posada. Instead, they used it to uncover the spy network that included the Cuban Five. According to FBI evidence at the trial, the FBI had been monitoring the communications of Hernández, whose information enabled the shootdown, for several years prior to that event. He was not arrested until 1998.
, on September 12, 1998 and were indicted
by the US government on 25 different counts, including charges of false identification
and conspiracy to commit espionage. Seven months later, an additional indictment was added for Gerardo Hernández - conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the shoot-down of the Brothers to the Rescue aircraft. The additional charge followed months of public and media debate in Miami, with Cuban exile groups pressing for the charge.
Hernández states that from the day of their arrests, five spent 17 months in solitary confinement
. The President of the Cuban National Assembly Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
stated that evidence that "belonged to the defendants themselves and included family photographs, personal correspondence and recipes" - was classified as "secret", preventing the defendants and their attorneys from seeing it.
The trial, beginning in November 2000, went on for seven months, although jury
deliberations lasted a few hours. In June 2001, the group was convicted of all 26 counts in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida
in Miami, including the charge of first-degree murder against Gerardo Hernandez which the prosecution had applied to withdraw. The prosecution had tried to withdraw the case when it became clear that the judge's jury instructions would specify that the murder charge required that the deaths occurred within US jurisdiction, which it had been unable to show. The prosecution also applied for an emergency writ, which was denied, that the instructions should exclude reference to jurisdiction.
In December 2001, the members of the group were sentenced to varying prison terms: two life terms
for Hernández, to be served consecutively; life for Guerrero and Labañino; 19 years for Fernando Gonzáles; and 15 years for René Gonzáles. In addition, the prosecution sought the post-release deportation of the three Cuban-born members, and for the two US-born members, a post-release sentence of "incapacitation", imposing specific restrictions on them after their release, which would be enforced by the FBI. The restrictions ban them from "associating with or visiting specific places where individuals or groups such as terrorists, members of organizations advocating violence, and organized crime figures are known to be or frequent."
A 2011 NPR
report claimed some of the people associated with this group were imprisoned in a highly restrictive Communication Management Unit
.
, on the basis that Miami was a venue too associated with exile Cubans, were denied, despite the fact that the trial began just five months after the heated Elian Gonzalez affair. The jury did not include any Cuban-Americans but 16 of the 160 members of the jury pool "knew the victims of the shootdown or knew trial witnesses who had flown with them." According to Ricardo Alarcon, President of Cuba's National Assembly, a year later, an application to change venue for the same reason was granted by the same court in an employment case with a Cuban connection. As a result the Five applied for annulment of the trial and a change of venue for a retrial; the motion was denied. According to Alarcon, the Five's appeal to a higher court was inhibited by further month's solitary confinement in early 2003, and by denial of access to their attorneys. On August 9, 2005, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
in Atlanta unanimously overturned the convictions and sentences of the Cuban Five and ordered a new trial outside of Miami, saying that the Cuban exile community
and the trial publicity made the trial unfavorable and prejudicial to the defendants. This was the first time a Federal Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a trial court's finding with respect to venue. However, on October 31, 2005 the Atlanta court agreed to a US government request to review the decision, and in August 2006 the ruling for a new trial was reversed by a 10-2 vote of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeal sitting en banc
. Charles R. Wilson wrote the opinion of the majority.
On June 4, 2008, a 3-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the convictions of the "Five" but vacated
and remanded for resentencing in district court
the sentences of Guerrero, Labañino, and Fernando González. The court affirmed the sentences of Gerardo Hernandez and Rene Gonzalez. The court held that the sentencing judge had made six serious errors and remanded the case back to the same court. The decision was drawn up by William Pryor
. In January 2009, the Five appealed to the US Supreme Court. 12 amicus curiae
briefs were filed.
In May 2009, in response to the request for Supreme Court of the United States
review of the panel decision by Judge Pryor, Solicitor General Elena Kagan
, on behalf of President Barack Obama
, filed a brief asking that the petition for a writ of certiorari
be denied. On June 15, 2009, the Supreme Court denied review
On October 13, 2009, Antonio Guerrero's sentence was reduced to 22 years. On December 8, 2009, Ramon Labanino and Fernando Gonzalez's sentence were reduced to 30 years and 18 years, respectively.
was preparing to file a new round of appeals that would include evidence of government payments to journalists who later authored negative articles before and during the original trial of the Cuban Five.
On 27 May 2005, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
adopted a report by its Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
stating its opinions on the facts and circumstances of the case and calling upon the US government to remedy the situation. Among the report's criticisms of the trial and sentences, section 29 states:
Amnesty International
has criticized the US treatment of the Cuban Five as "unnecessarily punitive and contrary both to standards for the humane treatment of prisoners and to states’ obligation to protect family life", as the wives of René Gonzáles and Gerardo Hernández have not been allowed visas
to visit their imprisoned husbands. Amnesty said in early 2006 that it was "following closely the status of the ongoing appeals of the five men of numerous issues challenging the fairness of the trial which have not yet been addressed by the appeal courts."
The US Government has responded to these claims, stating that the prisoners have received over a hundred visits from family members granted visas. The government contends that the wives of González and Hernández are members of the Cuban Intelligence Directorate, and thus pose a risk to the National Security
of the United States
:
Eight international Nobel Prize
winners have written and sent a document to the US Attorney General calling for freedom for the Cuban Five, signed by Zhores Alferov (Nobel Prize for Physics, 2000), Desmond Tutu
(Nobel Peace Prize
, 1984), Nadine Gordimer
(Nobel Prize in Literature
, 1991), Rigoberta Menchú
(Nobel Peace Prize, 1992), Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
(Nobel Peace Prize, 1980), Wole Soyinka
(Nobel Prize in Literature, 1986), José Saramago
(Nobel Prize in Literature, 1996), Günter Grass
(Nobel Prize in Literature, 1999).
In the United Kingdom
, among other actions, 110 Members of Parliament wrote an open letter to the US Attorney General in support of the Five.
In April 2009, a Brazilian human rights group, Torture Never Again
, awarded the Five its Chico Mendes
Medal, alleging that their rights had been violated, declaring that "their mail is censored and their visiting rights are very restricted."
In 2011, brazilian writer Fernando Morais wrote The Last Soldiers of the Cold War, about the Cuban Five. The book is based on over 40 interviews and documents of the governments of United States and Cuba.
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n intelligence officers convicted
Conviction
In law, a conviction is the verdict that results when a court of law finds a defendant guilty of a crime.The opposite of a conviction is an acquittal . In Scotland and in the Netherlands, there can also be a verdict of "not proven", which counts as an acquittal...
in Miami of conspiracy to commit espionage
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
, conspiracy
Conspiracy (crime)
In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...
to commit murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
, and other illegal activities in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The Five were in the United States to observe and infiltrate the Cuban-American groups Alpha 66
Alpha 66
Alpha 66 are an anti-communist terrorist organization, formed by Cuban exiles in Puerto Rico in 1961, in opposition to Fidel Castro. The founder and first leader, Nazario Sargen, was a former member of the 26th of July Movement organization led by Fidel Castro, suggesting that their politics may...
, the F4 Commandos, the Cuban American National Foundation, and Brothers to the Rescue
Brothers to the Rescue
Brothers to the Rescue is a Miami-based activist organization headed by José Basulto. Formed by Cuban exiles, the group is widely known for its opposition to the Cuban government and, then President, Fidel Castro...
, as well as the US Southern Command.
At their trial, evidence was presented that the Five infiltrated the Miami-based Cuban exile
Cuban exile
The term "Cuban exile" refers to the many Cubans who have sought alternative political or economic conditions outside the island, dating back to the Ten Years' War and the struggle for Cuban independence during the 19th century...
group Brothers to the Rescue, obtained employment at the Key West Naval Air Station in order to send the Cuban government reports about the base, and had attempted to penetrate the Miami facility of US Southern Command. On February 24, 1996, two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft were shot down by Cuban military jets in international airspace while flying away from Cuban airspace, killing the four US citizens aboard. One of the Five, Gerardo Hernández, was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder for supplying information to the Cuban government which according to the prosecution led to the shootdown. The Court of Appeals
has, however, reversed the conviction on the conspiracy to commit murder, since there is no evidence that Hernández knew the shootdown would occur in international airspace.
For their part, Cuba acknowledges that the five men were intelligence agents, but says they were spying on Miami’s Cuban exile community, not the U.S. government. Cuba contends that the men were sent to South Florida in the wake of several terrorist bombings in Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
allegedly masterminded by anti-communist militant Luis Posada Carriles
Luis Posada Carriles
Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles is a Cuban-born Venezuelan anti-communist and former Central Intelligence Agency agent....
, a former Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
operative.
The Five appealed their convictions and the alleged lack of fairness in their trial has received substantial international criticism. A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta overturned their convictions in 2005, citing the "prejudices" of Miami’s anti-Castro Cubans, but the full court later reversed the five's bid for a new trial and reinstated the original convictions. In June 2009 the US Supreme Court declined to review the case. In Cuba, the Five are viewed as national heroes and portrayed as having sacrificed their liberty in the defense of their country.
Rene Gonzalez was released in October 2011.
Background
In 1960s and 1970s, there were many acts of terrorism against Cuba by US-based counterrevolutionaryCounterrevolutionary
A counter-revolutionary is anyone who opposes a revolution, particularly those who act after a revolution to try to overturn or reverse it, in full or in part...
exile groups such as Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations
Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations
Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations is an anti-Castro group founded by Cuban exiles Orlando Bosch, Luis Posada Carriles, Guillermo Novo Sampoll and Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo....
(CORU), Alpha 66
Alpha 66
Alpha 66 are an anti-communist terrorist organization, formed by Cuban exiles in Puerto Rico in 1961, in opposition to Fidel Castro. The founder and first leader, Nazario Sargen, was a former member of the 26th of July Movement organization led by Fidel Castro, suggesting that their politics may...
, and Omega 7
Omega 7
Omega 7 was a small Cuban paramilitary group based in Florida and New York made up of Cuban exiles whose stated goal was to overthrow Fidel Castro. The group had less than 20 members....
. In a 2001 report by Cuba's Permanent Mission to the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, the Cuban government cataloged 3,478 deaths as a result of "terrorism", "aggression", "acts of piracy and other actions". The events cited span the course of four decades and pertain to attacks such as the bombing of Cubana Flight 455
Cubana Flight 455
Cubana Flight 455 was a Cuban flight from Barbados to Jamaica that was brought down by a terrorist attack on October 6, 1976. All 78 people on board the Douglas DC-8 aircraft were killed in what was then the deadliest terrorist airline attack in the Western hemisphere...
by men trained by the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
, the CIA-supported Bay of Pigs invasion
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The invasion was launched in April 1961, less than three months...
, and the War Against the Bandits
War Against the Bandits
The War Against the Bandits was a six-year rebellion in the Escambray Mountains by a group of Cuban insurgents who opposed the new Communist government led by Fidel Castro...
between the government and anti-communist
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
rebels in the Escambray Mountains
Escambray Mountains
The Escambray Mountains are a mountain range in the central region of Cuba, in the provinces of Sancti Spíritus, Cienfuegos and Villa Clara....
(see also Operation Mongoose]). As a result, the Cuban government had long sought to combat these groups. Their efforts include the use of spies sent to operate in the US. The Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
and other U.S. organizations had been monitoring the activities of Cuban spy suspects for more than 30 years.
Activities
The "Cuban Five" were Cuban intelligence officers who were part of "La Red Avispa", or Wasp Network, which the Federal Bureau of InvestigationFederal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
(FBI) dismantled with 10 arrests in 1998. According to Gerardo Hernández, the leader of the cell
Clandestine cell system
A clandestine cell structure is a method for organizing a group of people in such a way that it can more effectively resist penetration by an opposing organization. Depending on the group's philosophy, its operational area, the communications technologies available, and the nature of the mission,...
, and as reported by Saul Landau
Saul Landau
Saul Landau is journalist, filmmaker, and commentator. He is Professor Emeritus at California State University, Pomona. He is a senior Fellow at and Vice Chair of the Institute for Policy Studies.-Career:...
in the political magazine CounterPunch
Counterpunch
Counterpunch can refer to:* Counterpunch , a punch in boxing* CounterPunch, a bi-weekly political newsletter* Counterpunch , a type of punch used in traditional typography* Punch-Counterpunch, a Transformers character...
, the network observed and infiltrated a number of Cuban-American groups: Alpha 66
Alpha 66
Alpha 66 are an anti-communist terrorist organization, formed by Cuban exiles in Puerto Rico in 1961, in opposition to Fidel Castro. The founder and first leader, Nazario Sargen, was a former member of the 26th of July Movement organization led by Fidel Castro, suggesting that their politics may...
, the F4 Commandos, the Cuban American National Foundation, and Brothers to the Rescue
Brothers to the Rescue
Brothers to the Rescue is a Miami-based activist organization headed by José Basulto. Formed by Cuban exiles, the group is widely known for its opposition to the Cuban government and, then President, Fidel Castro...
. The court found that they had infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based organization that flew small aircraft over the Florida straits in efforts to rescue rafters fleeing Cuba, and had on some flights intentionally violated Cuban airspace and dropped leaflets. They obtained employment as laborers at the Key West Naval Air Station and sent the Cuban government detailed reports about the movement of aircraft and military personnel, and descriptions of the layout of the facility and its structures. They also attempted to penetrate the Miami facility of Southern Command, which plans and oversees operations of all US military forces throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. On February 24, 1996, two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft were shot down by Cuban military jets in international airspace while flying away from Cuban airspace, killing four US citizens aboard. The US government also accused the remaining four of lying about their identities and sending 2,000 pages of unclassified information obtained from US military bases to Cuba. The network received clandestine communications from Cuba via the Atención numbers station.
US government organizations, including the FBI, had been monitoring Cuban spy activities for over 30 years, but made only occasional arrests. However, after the two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft were shot down by Cuban MiG
Mig
-Industry:*MiG, now Mikoyan, a Russian aircraft corporation, formerly the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau*Metal inert gas welding or MIG welding, a type of welding using an electric arc and a shielding gas-Business and finance:...
s in February 1996 and four US citizens were killed, on the basis of information sent to Cuba by an infiltrator of the group, the Clinton administration launched a crackdown. According to US attorney José Pertierra, who acts for the Venezuelan government in its attempts to extradite Luis Posada Carriles
Luis Posada Carriles
Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles is a Cuban-born Venezuelan anti-communist and former Central Intelligence Agency agent....
, the crackdown was aided by the cooperation of the Cuban authorities with the FBI in 1997. The Cubans provided 175 pages of documents to FBI agents investigating Posada Carriles's role in the 1997 bombings in Havana, but the FBI failed to use the evidence to follow up on Posada. Instead, they used it to uncover the spy network that included the Cuban Five. According to FBI evidence at the trial, the FBI had been monitoring the communications of Hernández, whose information enabled the shootdown, for several years prior to that event. He was not arrested until 1998.
Arrests, convictions and sentences
All five were arrested in Miami, FloridaFlorida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, on September 12, 1998 and were indicted
Indictment
An indictment , in the common-law legal system, is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that maintain the concept of felonies, the serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that lack the concept of felonies often use that of an indictable offence—an...
by the US government on 25 different counts, including charges of false identification
Identity document forgery
Identity document forgery is the process by which identity documents issued by governing bodies are copied and/or modified by persons not authorized to create such documents or engage in such modifications, for the purpose of deceiving those who would view the documents about the identity or status...
and conspiracy to commit espionage. Seven months later, an additional indictment was added for Gerardo Hernández - conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the shoot-down of the Brothers to the Rescue aircraft. The additional charge followed months of public and media debate in Miami, with Cuban exile groups pressing for the charge.
Hernández states that from the day of their arrests, five spent 17 months in solitary confinement
Solitary confinement
Solitary confinement is a special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is isolated from any human contact, though often with the exception of members of prison staff. It is sometimes employed as a form of punishment beyond incarceration for a prisoner, and has been cited as an additional...
. The President of the Cuban National Assembly Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada is a Cuban statesman. He served as Cuba's Permanent Representative to the United Nations for nearly 30 years and later served as the country's Minister of Foreign Affairs, from 1992 to 1993...
stated that evidence that "belonged to the defendants themselves and included family photographs, personal correspondence and recipes" - was classified as "secret", preventing the defendants and their attorneys from seeing it.
The trial, beginning in November 2000, went on for seven months, although jury
Jury
A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt, or lack thereof, in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty,...
deliberations lasted a few hours. In June 2001, the group was convicted of all 26 counts in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida
United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida
The United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida is the federal United States district court with jurisdiction over the southern part of the state of Florida....
in Miami, including the charge of first-degree murder against Gerardo Hernandez which the prosecution had applied to withdraw. The prosecution had tried to withdraw the case when it became clear that the judge's jury instructions would specify that the murder charge required that the deaths occurred within US jurisdiction, which it had been unable to show. The prosecution also applied for an emergency writ, which was denied, that the instructions should exclude reference to jurisdiction.
In December 2001, the members of the group were sentenced to varying prison terms: two life terms
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
for Hernández, to be served consecutively; life for Guerrero and Labañino; 19 years for Fernando Gonzáles; and 15 years for René Gonzáles. In addition, the prosecution sought the post-release deportation of the three Cuban-born members, and for the two US-born members, a post-release sentence of "incapacitation", imposing specific restrictions on them after their release, which would be enforced by the FBI. The restrictions ban them from "associating with or visiting specific places where individuals or groups such as terrorists, members of organizations advocating violence, and organized crime figures are known to be or frequent."
A 2011 NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
report claimed some of the people associated with this group were imprisoned in a highly restrictive Communication Management Unit
Communication Management Unit
Communication Management Unit is a recent designation for a self-contained group within a facility in the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons that severely restricts, manages and monitors all outside communication of inmates in the unit.-Origins:As part of the Bush Administration's War on...
.
Appeals
After the arrests, motions by the defense for a change of venueChange of venue
A change of venue is the legal term for moving a trial to a new location. In high-profile matters, a change of venue may occur to move a jury trial away from a location where a fair and impartial jury may not be possible due to widespread publicity about a crime and/or its defendant to another...
, on the basis that Miami was a venue too associated with exile Cubans, were denied, despite the fact that the trial began just five months after the heated Elian Gonzalez affair. The jury did not include any Cuban-Americans but 16 of the 160 members of the jury pool "knew the victims of the shootdown or knew trial witnesses who had flown with them." According to Ricardo Alarcon, President of Cuba's National Assembly, a year later, an application to change venue for the same reason was granted by the same court in an employment case with a Cuban connection. As a result the Five applied for annulment of the trial and a change of venue for a retrial; the motion was denied. According to Alarcon, the Five's appeal to a higher court was inhibited by further month's solitary confinement in early 2003, and by denial of access to their attorneys. On August 9, 2005, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* Middle District of Alabama...
in Atlanta unanimously overturned the convictions and sentences of the Cuban Five and ordered a new trial outside of Miami, saying that the Cuban exile community
Cuban migration to Miami
Cuban immigration has greatly characterized 20th century Miami, creating what is known as "Cuban Miami".However, Miami reflects global trends as well, such as the growing trends of multiculturalism and multiracialism; this reflects the way in which international politics shape local...
and the trial publicity made the trial unfavorable and prejudicial to the defendants. This was the first time a Federal Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a trial court's finding with respect to venue. However, on October 31, 2005 the Atlanta court agreed to a US government request to review the decision, and in August 2006 the ruling for a new trial was reversed by a 10-2 vote of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeal sitting en banc
En banc
En banc, in banc, in banco or in bank is a French term used to refer to the hearing of a legal case where all judges of a court will hear the case , rather than a panel of them. It is often used for unusually complex cases or cases considered to be of greater importance...
. Charles R. Wilson wrote the opinion of the majority.
On June 4, 2008, a 3-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the convictions of the "Five" but vacated
Vacated judgment
A vacated judgment makes a previous legal judgment legally void. A vacated judgment is usually the result of the judgment of an appellate court which overturns, reverses, or sets aside the judgment of a lower court....
and remanded for resentencing in district court
United States district court
The United States district courts are the general trial courts of the United States federal court system. Both civil and criminal cases are filed in the district court, which is a court of law, equity, and admiralty. There is a United States bankruptcy court associated with each United States...
the sentences of Guerrero, Labañino, and Fernando González. The court affirmed the sentences of Gerardo Hernandez and Rene Gonzalez. The court held that the sentencing judge had made six serious errors and remanded the case back to the same court. The decision was drawn up by William Pryor
William H. Pryor, Jr.
William Holcombe "Bill" Pryor, Jr. is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Previously, he was the Attorney General of the State of Alabama from 1997 to 2004.-Background:...
. In January 2009, the Five appealed to the US Supreme Court. 12 amicus curiae
Amicus curiae
An amicus curiae is someone, not a party to a case, who volunteers to offer information to assist a court in deciding a matter before it...
briefs were filed.
In May 2009, in response to the request for Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
review of the panel decision by Judge Pryor, Solicitor General Elena Kagan
Elena Kagan
Elena Kagan is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving since August 7, 2010. Kagan is the Court's 112th justice and fourth female justice....
, on behalf of President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
, filed a brief asking that the petition for a writ of certiorari
Certiorari
Certiorari is a type of writ seeking judicial review, recognized in U.S., Roman, English, Philippine, and other law. Certiorari is the present passive infinitive of the Latin certiorare...
be denied. On June 15, 2009, the Supreme Court denied review
On October 13, 2009, Antonio Guerrero's sentence was reduced to 22 years. On December 8, 2009, Ramon Labanino and Fernando Gonzalez's sentence were reduced to 30 years and 18 years, respectively.
Plans for a 2010 appeal based on new evidence of government payment to journalists
As of June 2010 Cuban Five defense lawyer Leonard WeinglassLeonard Weinglass
Leonard Irving Weinglass was a U.S. criminal defense lawyer and constitutional law advocate. Weinglass graduated from Yale Law School in 1958, then served as a Captain, Judge Advocate, United States Air Force from 1959 to 1961. He was admitted to the bar in the states of New Jersey, New York,...
was preparing to file a new round of appeals that would include evidence of government payments to journalists who later authored negative articles before and during the original trial of the Cuban Five.
International criticism of the convictions, and US response
Since their conviction, there has been an international campaign for the case to be appealed. In the United States, the campaign is most conspicuously represented by the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five which is represented in twenty US cities and over thirty countries.On 27 May 2005, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
United Nations Commission on Human Rights
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it was replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006...
adopted a report by its Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention is a UN-mandated body of independent human rights experts that investigates cases of arbitrary arrest and detention that may be in violation of international human rights law....
stating its opinions on the facts and circumstances of the case and calling upon the US government to remedy the situation. Among the report's criticisms of the trial and sentences, section 29 states:
29. The Working Group notes that it arises from the facts and circumstances in which the trial took place and from the nature of the charges and the harsh sentences handed down to the accused that the trial did not take place in the climate of objectivity and impartiality that is required in order to conform to the standards of a fair trialFair TrialFair Trial was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and Champion sire. He was bred and raced by John Arthur Dewar who also bred and raced Tudor Minstrel....
as defined in article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political RightsInternational Covenant on Civil and Political RightsThe International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is a multilateral treaty adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 16, 1966, and in force from March 23, 1976...
, to which the United States of America is a party.
Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
has criticized the US treatment of the Cuban Five as "unnecessarily punitive and contrary both to standards for the humane treatment of prisoners and to states’ obligation to protect family life", as the wives of René Gonzáles and Gerardo Hernández have not been allowed visas
Visa (document)
A visa is a document showing that a person is authorized to enter the territory for which it was issued, subject to permission of an immigration official at the time of actual entry. The authorization may be a document, but more commonly it is a stamp endorsed in the applicant's passport...
to visit their imprisoned husbands. Amnesty said in early 2006 that it was "following closely the status of the ongoing appeals of the five men of numerous issues challenging the fairness of the trial which have not yet been addressed by the appeal courts."
The US Government has responded to these claims, stating that the prisoners have received over a hundred visits from family members granted visas. The government contends that the wives of González and Hernández are members of the Cuban Intelligence Directorate, and thus pose a risk to the National Security
National security
National security is the requirement to maintain the survival of the state through the use of economic, diplomacy, power projection and political power. The concept developed mostly in the United States of America after World War II...
of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
:
Consistent with the right of the United States to protect itself from covert spies, the U.S. government has not granted visas to the wives of two prisoners. Evidence presented at their husbands’ trial revealed that one of these women was a member of the Wasp Network who was deported for engaging in activity related to espionage and is ineligible to return to the United States. The other was a candidate for training as a Directorate of Intelligence U.S.-based spy when U.S. authorities broke up the network.
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
winners have written and sent a document to the US Attorney General calling for freedom for the Cuban Five, signed by Zhores Alferov (Nobel Prize for Physics, 2000), Desmond Tutu
Desmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu is a South African activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid...
(Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
, 1984), Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimer
Nadine Gordimer is a South African writer and political activist. She was awarded the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature when she was recognised as a woman "who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity".Her writing has long dealt...
(Nobel Prize in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
, 1991), Rigoberta Menchú
Rigoberta Menchú
Rigoberta Menchú Tum is an indigenous Guatemalan, of the K'iche' ethnic group. Menchú has dedicated her life to publicizing the plight of Guatemala's indigenous peoples during and after the Guatemalan Civil War , and to promoting indigenous rights in the country...
(Nobel Peace Prize, 1992), Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel is an Argentine sculptor, architect and pacifist. He was the recipient of the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize.-Biography:Pérez Esquivel was born in Buenos Aires to a Spanish fisherman who emigrated to Argentina...
(Nobel Peace Prize, 1980), Wole Soyinka
Wole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Soyinka is a Nigerian writer, poet and playwright. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, where he was recognised as a man "who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence", and became the first African in Africa and...
(Nobel Prize in Literature, 1986), José Saramago
José Saramago
José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE was a Nobel-laureate Portuguese novelist, poet, playwright and journalist. His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the human factor. Harold Bloom has described Saramago as "a...
(Nobel Prize in Literature, 1996), Günter Grass
Günter Grass
Günter Wilhelm Grass is a Nobel Prize-winning German author, poet, playwright, sculptor and artist.He was born in the Free City of Danzig...
(Nobel Prize in Literature, 1999).
In the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, among other actions, 110 Members of Parliament wrote an open letter to the US Attorney General in support of the Five.
In April 2009, a Brazilian human rights group, Torture Never Again
Torture Never Again
Torture Never Again is a Brazilian human rights organization, founded by Cecília Coimbra, a victim of Brazilian military torturers....
, awarded the Five its Chico Mendes
Chico Mendes
Francisco Alves Mendes Filho, better known as Chico Mendes , was a Brazilian rubber tapper, trade union leader and environmentalist. He fought to preserve the Amazon rainforest, and advocated for the human rights of Brazilian peasants and indigenous peoples...
Medal, alleging that their rights had been violated, declaring that "their mail is censored and their visiting rights are very restricted."
In 2011, brazilian writer Fernando Morais wrote The Last Soldiers of the Cold War, about the Cuban Five. The book is based on over 40 interviews and documents of the governments of United States and Cuba.
External links
- National Committee to Free the Cuban Five
- Miami 5 — site run by the Cuban newspaper GranmaGranma (newspaper)Granma is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party.Its name comes from the yacht Granma that carried Fidel Castro and 81 other rebels to Cuba's shores in 1956 launching the Cuban Revolution.-Editions:...
- antiterroristas.cu — on terrorism against Cuba, and on the Cuban Five
- The Untold Story of the Cuban Five by Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcón
- The Coddled "Terrorists" of South Florida by Tristram Korten and Kirk Nielsen, Salon Magazine, January 14, 2008
- The Federal Government Paid Journalists to Sabotage Trial by Linn Washington Jr, CounterPunchCounterpunchCounterpunch can refer to:* Counterpunch , a punch in boxing* CounterPunch, a bi-weekly political newsletter* Counterpunch , a type of punch used in traditional typography* Punch-Counterpunch, a Transformers character...
, June 4, 2010