Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Cuba keeps up fight to bring home jailed spies

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published March 22, 2007

HAVANA - Five Cuban spies imprisoned in the United States for being unregistered foreign agents are vilified in Miami as dangerous conspirators. But in Cuba, they're considered "Heroic Prisoners of the Empire" who only sought to protect Cuba from anticommunist terrorists.

And Fidel Castro is closely watching their federal appeals.

Castro's government sent Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Rene Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando Gonzalez to South Florida to gather information about anticommunist exile groups.

While the spy ring obtained no U.S. secrets, federal prosecutors argued for stiff sentences.

Defense lawyers said they were trying to gather information that might prevent exile groups from waging attacks like the bombings at Havana hotels in 1997.

All five were convicted in 2001 of being unregistered foreign agents, and three also were found guilty of espionage conspiracy for failed efforts to obtain military secrets. Hernandez also was convicted of murder conspiracy.

Now serving terms ranging from 10 years to life, the men hope the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta will grant their request for a new trial outside Miami, where they say it was impossible to get a fair trial.

A three-judge panel threw out their convictions, agreeing that pretrial publicity and pervasive anti-Castro feeling in Miami didn't allow for a fair trial. But the U.S. government has asked the full court to reconsider.

[Last modified March 22, 2007, 01:52:23]