Posted on Wed, Aug. 14, 2002 in
The Miami
Herald.
Support drive for Cuban spies begins
Associated Press.
Supporters of five Cuban agents convicted in an espionage case are beginning
a national campaign aimed at winning them a new trial.
National Lawyers Guild president Bruce Nestor said Tuesday that his group
wants to build a groundswell of support for the men in a case that he says was
politicized by the U.S. government.
''This is a sad case,'' Nestor said. "They're paying the penalty for
U.S. policy.''
Ringleader Gerardo Hernández and Ramón Labañino, who
substituted for him, received life terms in December for espionage conspiracy.
Hernández received a concurrent life term for playing a role in a
Cuban MiG attack that killed four Miami men flying with Brothers to the Rescue
in international airspace in 1996.
Antonio Guerrero is serving a life sentence after working for six years as a
manual laborer at the Key West Naval Air Station.
René González received 15 years for infiltrating six exile
groups. Fernando González received 19 years for supervising agents
assigned to penetrate the U.S. Southern Command.
A group called the National Campaign to Free the Five has begun speaking
tours and rallies around the country to bring the case to the public, said
Gloria La Riva, who represents the campaign. Los Angeles, New York, St. Louis,
Chicago, Cleveland and Miami are among the cities targeted.
Attorneys have filed notices of appeal with the 11th Circuit Court of
Appeals in Atlanta.
Accused torturer too ill to surrender
By Larry Lebowitz. Llebowitz@Herald.Com.
Accused Cuban torturer Eriberto Mederos failed to report to jail the day
after his historic conviction by a Miami federal jury because he was too ill to
surrender.
Mederos, 79, is reportedly being treated for cancer and may not survive
until the scheduled sentencing on Oct. 16, sources said.
David Rothman, Mederos' attorney, nor his relatives could not be reached for
comment Tuesday.
On Aug. 1, Mederos became the first person convicted on a torture-related
criminal charge in a U.S. court.
A jury found he obtained U.S. citizenship illegally by concealing his past
from immigration officials: both his membership in the Communist Party in Cuba
and his role in administering electroshock treatment to anti-Fidel Castro
political prisoners at the Mazorra psychiatric hospital in Havana.
Mederos, who was barely responsive during the trial, faces zero to six
months in prison, based on the sentencing guidelines and his lack of a prior
criminal history, Rothman said.
After the verdict, Rothman said Mederos had been hospitalized the previous
weekend and violated a doctor's orders by leaving the hospital and returning to
court to complete the trial.
U.S. District Judge Alan S. Gold had ordered Mederos to get his affairs in
order and report to jail by noon on Aug. 2.
Records show Gold has thrice extended the surrender deadline: originally to
5 p.m. Aug. 5, then 5 p.m. Aug. 9 and now to 5 p.m. this Friday.
All of the defense motions detailing Mederos' declining condition and asking
to extend The surrender deadline have been filed under seal.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Tamen, who prosecuted the case, has not
opposed the extensions.
On Tuesday, José Ros, one of Mederos' victims who testified at his
trial, said Mederos is jockeying for house arrest.
''I carry no hatred for him in my heart, but I remember that he had no
compassion for his victims,'' Ros said. "Mederos was a first-class
torturer.''
Herald staff writer Luisa Yanez contributed to this report |