Freedom of His Four Companions a Priority for Cuban Anti-Terrorist
News from Cuba | Friday, 10 May 2013
The return to Cuba of the four anti-terrorist fighters who remain imprisoned in the United States is a priority for Rene Gonzalez, who started the procedures to renounce his U.S. citizenship yesterday in this capital.
“Until they all are here we must continue fighting (?) They will resist, they will not yield,” Rene told the reporters after beginning the procedures to renounce his citizenship at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, accompanied by his lawyer Philip Horowitz.
The anti-terrorist fighter was detained in 1998 along with Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez, and Ramon Labañino, for monitoring terrorist groups that organized, financed and executed actions from Miami that have killed more than 3,300 Cubans.
As Rene told national and foreign reporters, once he has resolved “this affair of the supervised release,” he will look for a way to join the global campaign “to correct this injustice so they can return to be with us.”
We need to reach U.S. society with that campaign, he said, so that the Americans are made aware of the case of the Five and their mission in the northern territory to protect human lives from terrorism.
Last week, Judge Joan Lenard accepted the request made by the anti-terrorist fighter to modify the terms of his supervised release and remain in Cuba, in exchange for his renunciation of U.S. citizenship.
After serving his sentence in October 2011, Rene was forced to remain in the United States for three additional years under supervised release, something lawyers and human rights defenders described as an additional punishment.
Regarding the procedure begun for his renunciation of U.S. citizenship, the anti-terrorist fighter told Prensa Latina that this is barely the beginning of the legal process to remain in his homeland, as a modification of the terms of his supervised release.
“The order from Judge Joan Lenard that I can be in Cuba if I renounce my U.S. citizenship is not the end of the matter,” he said, “because there are further things to be done,” he said.
In his exchange with national and foreign reporters accredited in Cuba, Rene thanked Cubans for their solidarity and said he was happy to be back in the Caribbean country, “joining the society to which I belong.”
