UN resolution confirms injustice against Cuban 5

A significant breakthrough in the case of the five Cuban political prisoners held in the U.S. occurred recently.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention ruled May 27 that the detention of the Cuban Five is arbitrary and in violation of international law.

Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and René González are being held in five federal prisons throughout the U.S. They were convicted in 2001 of conspiracy to commit espionage and murder in a case that had to do with their monitoring of far-right terrorist groups in Miami that had a known record of violence against Cuba. Their sentences range from 15 years to life.

The ruling adds weight to the view that the five are innocent but could not get a fair trial in Miami, where they were tried and sentenced.  

Despite the fact that this remarkable case is one of the most historic and significant political cases of our time, it rarely makes news in this country. A virtual whiteout of news on the case predominates, even thought it has to do with a very critical foreign policy issue of U.S.-Cuban relations.

The UN ruling is a crucial breakthrough that adds international weight to the call for justice. It also helps in the struggle to expose the case and its unfairness.

The ruling states that the Cubans were denied access to the totality of the evidence against them. Their lawyers were also denied access to the information needed to defend their clients adequately.

The AP reported the findings of the panel. The panel determined that “the trial did not take place in the climate of objectivity and impartiality which is required in order to conclude on the observance of the standards of a fair trial.´

Furthermore, legal procedures were incompatible with international agreements signed by the U.S. government. These agreements guarantee that “each person accused of a crime has the right to exercise, in full equality, all the facilities’ necessary to prepare her or his defense, stated the panel.

Those deficiencies are so serious, concluded the UN Working Group, that “they confer an arbitrary character to the privation of liberty of those persons.’

The UN panel of five lawyers requested that the U.S. government adopt the necessary steps to remedy the situation. Its ruling is not binding, however.

Their finding reinforces what supporters of the Cuban 5 have pointed out from the beginning--that these men are innocent. The five were held in solitary confinement for 17 months with no access to documents to prepare their case or to their lawyers.

Leonard Weinglass, noted civil rights attorney and one of the lawyers for the five, points out that he had to review 118 volumes of court transcripts to present an appeal last year. Yet the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals gave the lawyers for the five only three minutes each to present their case.
 
The ruling confirms that the case of the Cuban 5 is a highly political trial that was thoroughly unfair and unjust. The struggle to win their freedom must continue and should be escalated.