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Cuban Five Case Featured in Mexican Daily.

CUBA, August 31, 2011.- The digital version of Mexican daily La Jornada published an extensive article about the unfair judicial process that took five Cubans who were monitoring activities of U.S.-based terrorist organizations to prison almost 13 years ago.

The story is about Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino, Fernando Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero and Rene Gonzalez, who in September of 1998 were arrested by the FBI in Miami and punished to isolation for 17 months before be taken to court.

The article reproduced this Wednesday by Cubadebate explains that the Cuban Five were accused of the nebulous charge of conspiracy against the United States and three of them Gerardo, Ramon and Antonio were add the charge of conspiracy to commit espionage.

The daily says they were never accused of actual espionage, neither were they in the possession of classified documents.

The article goes on by noting that the case was heard in Miami, where the Cuban-American community has a long history of hostility against the Cuban government, despite the defense’s vigorous objection.

The hostile environment under which the trial took place was later described by the federal court of appeals as a “perfect storm” of
prejudices which prevented the execution of a fair trial.

Seven months after the initial accusation –the article reads- a new charge was added to Gerardo Hernandez: conspiracy to commit murder, following pressures from a heavy public campaign weighed by the anti-Cuba community in Miami looking to revenge the shot down of two aircrafts from an anti-Cuba group by the Cuban Air Force.

At the end of the trial -the longest so far in the history of the United States- and when the case was about to be presented before the jury, the government admitted in writing that it had failed to prove the charge of conspiracy to commit murder imposed on Gerardo Hernandez.

Nonetheless, the Miami jury found the five Cubans guilty of all the charges as a result of the pressure exercised by the local media, La Jornada highlights. (Cubaminrex-ACN)