Cuban Five’s Rene Gonzalez in Havana

HAVANA TIMES — The only member of the Cuban Five not imprisoned in the US is visiting his family for two weeks after he received permission from a Miami judge.

Rene Gonzalez served 13 years for conspiracy to commit espionage and is now in the second of his three years of supervised parole.

The other Cuban Five members are scattered around the US in different federal prisons.

They were arrested in 1998 and sentenced in 2001 after a politically charged trial widely regarded in the international legal world as irregularity-plagued and highly biased against them.

The official Cuban media reported yesterday that the private visit, following the recent death of Rene’s father, was approved under strict conditions by Judge Joan Lenard, who has presided over the Cuban Five case from the beginning.

While in Cuba, Gonzalez must maintain constant telephone contact with his probation officer and return to the US before the time period granted expires.

This is the second time Gonzalez has been allowed to visit his country, the first to see his seriously ill brother Roberto who died some months later, noted Prensa Latina.