Virtual New York.
Tuesday, 29 May 2001 16:09 (ET)
MIAMI, May 29 (UPI) -- Closing arguments began Tuesday in the trial of
five alleged Cuban spies following a trial that lasted more than five and a half
months.
The prosecution and defense are expected to take the rest of the week in
their last chance to convince the 12-member jury. Deliberations won't begin
until next week at the earliest.
Much of the argument is centering on a Cuban MiG attack that downed two
Brothers to the Rescue light planes in 1996, killing four Cuban-Americans from
Miami.
Prosecutors say evidence points to a conspiracy between alleged ringleader
Gerardo Hernandez and the Cuban government to set up the ambush of the fliers
over the Florida Straits. They were looking for refugees in rafts and boats
trying to make it from Cuba to Florida.
Hernandez is charged with conspiracy to commit murder and could face a life
sentence if he is convicted.
Prosecutors say Hernandez and the other four became "the eyes and ears
of the Cuban regime" in south Florida. They said the Cubans, operating
under bogus identities, used short-wave radios and encryption software to
transmit national defense secrets and disrupt the Miami Cuban-American
community.
The defense is expected to insist the Cubans were in this country to
monitor a possible U.S. invasion of Cuba by using public means such as newspaper
and broadcast reports. The three are Hernandez, Ramon Labanino and Antonio
Guerrero.
Labanino allegedly infiltrated U.S. Southern Command headquarters in Miami
and Guerrero worked in a menial job at Boca Chica Naval Air Station in the
Florida Keys. Those three could face life sentences, and the other two, Rene
Gonzalez and Fernando Gonzalez, face as many as 10 years in prison.
Rene Gonzalez was a Brothers to the Rescue volunteer, and Fermando Gonzalez
is accused of receiving coded messages from Cuba.
The trial started Dec. 7 before U.S. District Judge Joan Leonard. The jury
of 12 includes no Cuban-Americans but there are five Hispanics.
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