Citing bias in Miami area
New trial sought for imprisoned Cubans
By Gloria La Riva
In a major development for all five Cuban political
prisoners held in the U.S., attorney Leonard Weinglass filed a
motion on Nov. 12 in a Miami federal district court seeking a
new trial for his client, Antonio Guerrero. The other four
prisoners will soon join the legal action.
Weinglass's motion cites newly discovered evidence of
deliberate misrepresentation in the trial of the five Cubans by
the U.S. Attorney, whose office fought to keep the trial in
Miami. Although the defense attorneys had argued strongly to
the court that widespread prejudice in Miami precluded a fair
trial in that city, Federal Judge Joan Lenard denied a venue
change.
The Miami trial ended in June 2001 with convictions on all
26 federal charges.
In a Nov. 12 press conference to announce the motion,
Weinglass showed that the same U.S. Attorney's office which had
claimed that a fair, unbiased trial in Miami was possible for
the five then argued the opposite position one year later, when
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft was the defendant in a June
2002 civil suit--Ramírez v. Ashcroft.
Weinglass said: "The government took the position that when
the defendants were agents of the Cuban government charged with
murder and espionage, they could receive a fair trial in Miami.
But when the defendant in a civil case is the Attorney General
of the United States, he could not receive a fair trial in the
Miami district because of the very same prejudice and bias
coming out of the Cuban American community. These contradictory
positions make a mockery of justice."
"Mr. Weinglass's motion is extremely well thought out and
compelling," said Richard Klugh of the federal public
defender's office in Miami, who also participated in the press
conference and whose office defended Fernando González,
now in a federal prison in Oxford, Wisc.
Paul McKenna, trial and appeals lawyer for Gerardo
Hernández, who is in Lompoc prison in California serving
two life sentences on false charges of conspiracy to commit
murder and espionage, says, "Remember that now we depend on
Judge Lenard, who's being asked to undo four years of work.
That's a tremendous request. I don't know if she will have the
courage to do it, but I know it would be the correct thing to
do."
Lenard's conduct during the seven-month trial may be a gauge
of how she could rule on the new-trial motion.
During the trial, Lenard dismissed the significant findings
of a survey prepared for the defense by a Florida professor,
Gary Moran, in the struggle for venue change. The poll showed
strong anti-Cuba prejudice in the Miami/Dade County area, and
considerably less hostility in nearby Broward County, 25 miles
away.
The survey showed that 74.5 percent of Miami-area
respondents called for U.S. policy to "intensify U.S.
opposition to Cuba." In Broward County, only 26.5 percent of
respondents supported that position. The defense was willing to
have the trial moved to Broward.
Judge Lenard rejected Moran's survey findings, claiming,
among other things, that a 300-person survey was too small,
although she had earlier approved the defense's plan for a
300-person survey. A supporting affidavit to the Weinglass
motion, by Dr. Kendra Brennan, a legal psychologist and survey
expert, supports the validity of the Moran survey.
The five men--Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero,
Fernando González, Rene González and Ramón
Labañino--are serving from 15 years to two life terms in
federal prison. They were railroaded by the U.S. government on
false charges of espionage against the U.S. and other related
crimes. In actuality their sole mission was to monitor and
report on the activities of anti-Cuba, right-wing organizations
in Miami, in order to prevent terrorist attacks on Cuba.
Instead of prosecuting the terrorists, the FBI arrested the
anti-terrorists in pre-dawn raids on Sept. 12, 1998. The five
Cubans were portrayed by the government and right-wing Miami
media as agents threatening the "national security"of the
United States. They spent 17 months in solitary confinement in
a Miami prison.
Denied their fundamental rights
In Miami every legal, political and social issue is
influenced by the strong counter-revolutionary atmosphere. The
courts, police, city and county governments, media, educational
systems, and other institutions zealously promote hostility
toward Cuba. For the counter-revolutionary, terrorist groups
and their supporters, it is a billion-dollar industry.
While racism abounds against the African-American, Haitian
and other communities, the Cuban community has been afforded
privileges by the U.S. ruling class for providing shock troops
against the Cuban Revolution.
Certainly, the ultra-right do not speak for the majority of
all Cubans in Miami, who for the most part are working-class
poor who have arrived in recent years for economic reasons.
But for more than 40 years, those in Miami who speak openly
in favor of normalizing relations with Cuba and ending the
blockade have lived under intimidation and often terror.
Orlando Bosch, the notorious terrorist found responsible by
a Venezuelan court for the murder of 73 individuals in the 1976
bombing of a Cubana passenger plane, was officially declared a
"hero" by the city of Miami. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida
congressperson, used her office's influence to help procure
planes for the terrorist group "Brothers to the Rescue."
Even in Miami's cultural scene, the terrorists have held
sway. Last September, when Miami was the scheduled host city
for the Latin Grammy awards, local politicians and the police
catered to right-wing demands for access to the artists,
forcing the Grammy organizers to move their event to Los
Angeles at the last minute.
Reprinted from the Nov. 28, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe to WW by Email: wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Donate to
support pro-labor, anti-war news.
Email
this article
Printable
page