By Alfonso Chardy. achardy@herald.com. Published Tuesday,
April 24, 2001 in the Miami Herald
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has been asked to revoke the citizenship
of Eriberto Mederos, accused of torturing Cuban political prisoners with
electroshock treatment while he was an orderly at Havana's psychiatric hospital.
The request comes from Miami's two Cuban-American lawmakers in Congress, who
signed a joint letter to Ashcroft on Monday.
"We respectfully request that you direct the Department of Justice to
review the existing evidence against Mr. Mederos and seek to revoke his
citizenship,'' said the letter, which was signed by Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
and Lincoln Díaz-Balart, both Republicans, at her Sunset Drive office in
front of half a dozen of Mederos' alleged victims. They also are asking Ashcroft
to consider prosecuting Mederos.
José Ros, a former political prisoner, said he spent 30 days at the
Mazorra institution in 1968. He identified Mederos as the man who shocked him
daily "with high-voltage current.''
Another witness, Manuel Hernández Cruz, spoke on behalf of his
brother Ramón, who died in 1993.
"My brother spent his final days as a vegetable as a result of the
torture,'' Hernández said, sobbing.
There was no immediate response from Ashcroft or Justice Department
officials in Washington.
Mederos, who has lived in Miami-Dade County since 1984, could not be reached
for comment.
But in the past, Mederos has said he administered electroshock treatment as
a medical procedure ordered by doctors -- not as torture.
PRESSURE GROUP
The move by Ros-Lehtinen and Díaz-Balart is in response to pressure
by the Boynton Beach-based human rights organization International Educational
Missions, whose leader, Richard Krieger, recently convinced federal agents to
reopen the Mederos case and look for new witnesses or evidence.
Krieger advocates the detention, deportation or prosecution of foreign
nationals who live in the United States and are accused of torture or war
crimes. Those who are U.S. citizens should be stripped of their citizenship,
Krieger said.
Mederos is one of Krieger's targets.
"The Mederos case is not the only case you'll be hearing about,''
Krieger said, referring to his crusade to ferret out hundreds of other suspects
from various countries. "There are others who have committed heinous
acts.''
EFFORTS PRAISED
John Shewairy, Immigration and Naturalization Service chief of staff at the
Florida District Office in Miami, would not comment on the Mederos case. But he
praised the efforts of Krieger and others to expose human rights violators.
"Our policy is not to comment on the status of ongoing investigations
or matters which may result in official investigative action,'' Shewairy said. "We
are appreciative, as our community should also be, of the effort that Mr.
Krieger and others exert in identifying possible human right persecutors.''
INS officials have recently said they welcome evidence showing a foreign
national obtained citizenship fraudulently. INS granted Mederos citizenship in
1993 after federal agents concluded they could not dispute his contention that
the electroshock treatment was prescribed by doctors.
"Like at the Nuremberg trials [of Nazi war criminals], saying you were
just following orders is not a defense,'' Ros-Lehtinen said.
Díaz-Balart said the allegations against Mederos were "symptomatic
of the crimes against humanity perpetrated throughout the years by the Cuban
dictator.''
El Nuevo Herald staff writer Wilfredo Cancio Isla contributed to this
report.
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald | 