US Gov. Paid to Smear the Cuban Five

HAVANA TIMES — The lawyer for the five Cuban agents convicted in the US, Martin Garbus, accused that country’s government of “paying several million dollars to Miami journalists during trial of the Cuban Five,” reports the Cubadebate website.

Garbus issued a writ of habeas corpus this week in support of prisoner Gerardo Hernandez, with the goal of demonstrating “massive (US) government misconduct.”

Media sources that participated as “paid agents,” according to Garbus, were the El Nuevo Herald, The Miami Herald and the Diario Las Americas, as well as the well-known Radio/TV Marti network and Radio Mambi.

Individual journalists received at least $3,000 for their articles against “the Five,” claims Garbus, adding that, “These large sums of money, day after day, year after year, translated into over 1,000 articles and pieces of information that were spread in an act of manipulation that was incomprehensible and unprecedented.”

Should there fail to be a favorable response, the last word would then be with US President Obama, who could free the men through a presidential pardon.