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High court won't review 'Cuban 5' espionage case
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. Posted by: Steve White 2009-06-16 |
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