Cuba “Hero” Wants to Go Home
By Circles Robinson
HAVANA TIMES, Sept. 13 — Rene Gonzalez Sehwerert, one of the Cuban Five, is scheduled to be released from his US prison on October 7th and he wants to go home to Cuba.
His attorney, Phil Horowitz, is asking the court to allow Gonzalez to immediately return to Cuba and join his family, instead of spending three years of parole in the USA.
Gonzalez’ request is opposed by federal prosecutors who want him to have to remain in the US, noted AP. He – like the rest of the Cuban Five – has been in prison for nearly 13 years.
Horowitz told AP that Gonzalez’s mother in Cuba has expressed concern that he might be in danger if forced to serve out probation in the Miami area, home to thousands of Cuban exiles who are virulently opposed to the communist government of Raul and Fidel Castro.
Rene, a 55-year-old US born Cuban, was convicted on conspiracy to commit espionage after having, along with his comrades, infiltrated violence prone Cuban-exile organizations based in southern Florida that operate with the consent of the US government against Cuba and its interests abroad.
Cuba’s parliament chair Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada pointed out the irony in Gonzalez’ potential parole situation when addressing a gathering on Monday of supporters of the Cuban Five at the Astral Theater in Havana.
Alarcon called attention to a post-release sentence of “incapacitation”, whereby Gonzalez would be prohibited from “associating with or visiting specific places where individuals or groups such as terrorists, members of organizations advocating violence are known to be or frequent.”
The parole order is tacit proof that the US government allows terrorist organizations to operate in its territory, contradicting its declared War Against Terrorism in effect since the 911 destruction of the Twin Towers in NYC, noted Alarcon.
The Cuban Five are considered heroes in their country where billboards and posters with their pictures are found throughout the island.
In their 2001 trial, the men maintained that their actions in the US were only geared to stop terrorist attacks on Cuba and that they did not spy on any US government installations.
The obvious intent is to use the man as bait. To ensure this happens the US government will routinely harass him, attempt to deny any chance of employment or survival and basically leave him hopeless and dangling.
The crime carrying out a legal investigation of a terrorist organisation, with known ties with organised crime (those crime gangs that lost casinos in the Cuban Liberation).
The US government yet again proven to be a organisation that routinely commits crimes at the behest of psychopathic corporations, who will pursue any avenue no matter how lethal, in gaining greater profits via routine exploitation of people and the resources those people have a right to.
The identity of the world’s largest terrorist organization is well known.
Humberto, so what is your position on the situation to be faced by Rene Gonzalez. Should he be allowed to go home to Cuba after serving the jail portion of his sentence or should he be forced to spend three more years on probation in Miami?
The Cuban 5 were tried and their case went to the Supreme Court and was denided!
At their trial, evidence was presented that the Five infiltrated the Miami-based Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue, obtained employment at the Key West Naval Air Station in order to send the Cuban government reports about the base, and had attempted to penetrate the Miami facility of US Southern Command.[2] On February 24, 1996, two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft were shot down by Cuban military jets in international airspace while flying away from Cuban airspace, killing the four US citizens aboard.[2] One of the Five, Gerardo Hernández, was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder for supplying information to the Cuban government which according to the prosecution led to the shootdown. The Court of Appeals has, however, reversed the conviction on the conspiracy to commit murder, since there is no evidence that Hernández knew the shootdown would occur in international airspace.[2]
For their part, Cuba acknowledges that the five men were intelligence agents, but says they were spying on Miami’s Cuban exile community, not the U.S. government.[3] Cuba contends that the men were sent to South Florida in the wake of several terrorist bombings in Havana allegedly masterminded by anti-communist militant Luis Posada Carriles, a former Central Intelligence Agency operative.[3][4]
The Five appealed their convictions and the alleged lack of fairness in their trial has received substantial international criticism.[5] A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta overturned the spies’ convictions in 2005, citing the “prejudices” of Miami’s anti-Castro Cubans, but the full court later reversed the five’s bid for a new trial and reinstated the original convictions.[3] In June 2009 the US Supreme Court declined to review the case.[6] In Cuba, the Five are viewed as national heroes and portrayed as having sacrificed their liberty in the defense of their country.[
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Five