Gerardo Hernández denied habeas corpus documents, info

Gerardo Hernández

The deadline for the habeas corpus appeal for Cuban Five hero Gerardo Hernández is imminent, yet the U.S. government continues to withhold essential information and access to the legal documents required for his extraordinary appeal, according to Cuba’s National Assembly of Peoples Power.

“We have to demand American authorities to deliver the information they are hiding about their plot with so-called ‘journalists’ from Miami who slandered the Cuban Five and provoked and threatened members of the jury, despite protests by the judge herself,” a statement by the parliament reads.

The Cuban parliament urged the U.S. government to disclose satellite images, hidden for 15 years, that can reveal the true location of the Feb. 24, 1996, incident that Hernández was prosecuted for. On that day, three aircraft piloted by members of Brothers to the Rescue — a counterrevolutionary terrorist group based in Miami — violated Cuban airspace; subsequently, two of them were shot down.  (www.antiterroristas.cu)

When, on April 25, U.S. prosecutor Carolyn Heck Miller told the Miami federal court to deny Hernández’ appeal for this hearing, the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5 asked, “What does the prosecution fear from letting Gerardo exercise his right to present his arguments to the court and request alleged evidence against him?”

The answer is that the Cuban Five are innocent heroes who are recognized the world over for preventing horrific terror attacks on Cuba. Their story was shaped by so-called Miami “journalists,” who received a quarter million dollars from the U.S. government to demonize Hernández and his four comrades in their coverage leading up to and during the trial — thus creating bias and influencing the jury. (theCuban5.org) Evidence of these contracts and payments was only discovered years later and is part of the grounds for new hearings — particularly in the case of Hernández, who was sentenced to two life-terms-plus-15 years’ imprisonment and is denied any visitation from his spouse, Adriana Pérez.

Correcting the false narrative became and remains the major challenge for supporters. The Cuban Five monitored the perpetrators of violent attacks against Cuba and against supporters of the Cuban revolution even inside the U.S. The new Saul Landau video, “Will the Real Terrorist Please Stand Up,” reviews the bloody history of U.S.-based terrorism aimed at destroying Cuba’s independent socialist road.

In a July 26 interview on KPFK radio in Los Angeles, Landau pointed out, “When the U.S. wasn’t actually sponsoring the terrorist acts against Cuba, it was looking the other way and allowing the Cuban exiles to carry them out. So either they were directly partnered with the CIA or encouraged informally, passively by the U.S. authorities. There is a scene in the film where we find in the archives a quote from then President [Dwight] Eisenhower. When he is told by the Secretary of State at the time, Christian Herter — this is back in 1959 — that Cuban exiles are using Florida sites to take off and bomb Cuba, and the Cubans are complaining, Eisenhower’s response is, ‘Well why don’t the Cubans just shoot the planes down?’”

Yet the 1996 shootdown of two of the three Brothers to the Rescue planes that had violated Cuban airspace was used to ram legislation through the U.S. Congress. These new measures tightened the brutal U.S. economic blockade of Cuba and inflicted an inhuman and totally unjustified double life sentence on Hernández, who was vilified as a leader of the shootdown.

In an Aug. 12 message, the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5 said: “It is time that Gerardo Hernández and his four compañeros are freed. Even if just for humanitarian reasons, after 15 years of unjust imprisonment, it is time that the Five be freed. We do not expect something different from U.S. courts, but we believe that the U.S. government should make the right decision to allow the return of the Five to their families.

“[President Barack] Obama can use his executive powers outlined in the U.S. Constitution to liberate the Five. It’s time for him to listen to international demands and end this injustice.”

The Committee urges, “Please send telegrams, faxes and e-mail to the White House and all U.S. embassies based in your country demanding an end to the illegal and arbitrary treatment against Gerardo Hernández Nordelo.”

To send an e-mail message, visit www.whitehouse.gov/contact
Phone: 1 + 202-456-1111
Fax: 1 +202-456-2461
Address: President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20500