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Declaration by the GUE-NGL Group in the European Parliament

Strasbourg, 25-10-06

JUSTICE FOR THE FIVE CUBAN DETAINEES IMPRISONED IN MIAMI

Since 12 September 1998, five Cubans are in prison in Miami, Florida (USA). Accused without proof of "conspiracy of espionage" and even "conspiracy to murder", they are subject to conditions of detention that the United Nations Human Rights Commission described as "arbitrary". For 17 months, they have been held in solitary confinement, without even being able to communicate with their lawyers. Some of them have not been able to receive visits from their close relatives for 8 years!

Three of these men have been condemned to life in prison and two others to very long prison sentences following a trial that was so biased that the three magistrates designated by the Atlanta Court of Appeal to investigate this affair requested that a new trial take place in another location. An exceptional circumstance that illustrates the political nature of this trial: the Court of Appeal did not follow the opinion of the three magistrates that it had designated itself and rejected their request.

The GUE-NGL group has just heard testimonies from the wife of one of the five Cuban detainees in Miami as well as the mother of another of these prisoners. They are appealing to Europeans - parliamentarians, lawyers, human rights activists - to join with the increasing number of voices demanding the liberation of these five detainees and the holding of a fair trial. Already - we have been told - 115 British MPs from the House of Commons have signed a petition to this effect while in Madrid a powerful street demonstration has just taken place on this issue.

The GUE-NGL Group invites European deputies, independently of any judgment on the substance of this affair, to make known to the government of the United States their demand that these five prisoners benefit, like any other citizen, from a fair trial and that, in the meantime - because they have already served an eight-year sentence in particularly inhuman conditions and the fact that there is no proof to support the serious accusations brought against them - they are freed.

NB: The five prisoners include:

- Gerardo Hernández Nordelo

- Ramón Labañino Salazar

- Antonio Guerrero Rodríguez

- Frenando González Llort

- René González Sehweret

GUE/NGL Press

Gianfranco Battistini +32 475 64 66 28

David Lundy +32 485 50 58 12

www.guengl.eu

The GUE/NGL (European United Left/Nordic Green Left) Group is the fifth largest group in the European Parliament and is made up of forty-one MEPs from sixteen parties in thirteen European countries.

Le Groupe GUE/NGL (Gauche unitaire européenne/Gauche verte nordique) est le cinquième groupe du Parlement européen par la taille. Il est composé de 41 députés issus de 16 partis politiques de 13 pays européens.

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