Three of the Cuban Five await resentencing in Miami
RAMÓN Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando González are now being held in Miami’s Federal Detention Center to attend a resentencing hearing scheduled for October 13, the CubaDebate website reports.
Before Joan Lenard, the same judge who condemned the five Cuban antiterrorists to long and unjust sentences in 2001, a jury will have to consider the instructions from an appeals court — the 11th Circuit in Atlanta — which said the “sentences were incorrectly imposed” and thus annulled them.
According to the website antiterroristas.cu, since Fernando, Ramón and Tony arrived at the Federal Detention Center in Miami they have been kept in solitary confinement, in the same unit where they were held for the first 17 months following their arrest in September 1998.
Meanwhile, the legal team defending the Five is continuing the battle in the courts. According to statements by the lawyers during a recent visit to Havana, they hope that the life sentences will be eliminated and the new sentences will be “reasonable.”
However, what they are most concerned about is Gerardo’s situation. No resentencing was ordered for him — nor for René — and Gerardo is now serving two life sentences for the unproven charge of “conspiracy to commit murder.” Within the injustice and illegality of this case, the treatment given Gerardo has been even worse, defense layers agree.
As stated many times by Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada, president of the National Assembly of People’s Power, the Five have remained in prison longer than other people who have been sentenced for actual espionage, and the resentencing should lead to their immediate release, because they have already been unjustly imprisoned for more than 10 years.
