The US government requests more time to make decision on the five
Campaign News | Friday, 26 August 2005
Email the US Justice department today and demand their release: askdoj@usdoj.gov
Taken from AIN (Cuban News Agency)
August 25, 2005
The office of the Miami District Attorney, representing the United States government, has requested 30 additional days (through September 29) to decide whether or not to appeal the ruling of the Atlanta Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals which revoked the verdict and sentences of five Cubans wrongly imprisoned in the United States and annulled the trial that took place in South Florida.
According to experts, the 30-day extension application is an attempt by the US government to lengthen the process, and corresponds to an order by the US Attorney General who should decide whether to finally appeal the decision of the Eleventh Circuit Court.
As of Tuesday, August 23, two weeks had passed since the Atlanta court unanimously made its ruling without a reaction from the district attorney’s office. It has now reacted, but only in the form of this petition.
The President of the Cuban National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcón, had stated to AFP press agency that “if you consider you are in the right you would immediately launch an appeal. They don't know what to do because they have a lost case from a legal point of view”, said the Cuban legislator.
Faced with these new events, it is essential that the demand for the immediate release of the Five be intensified.
ANTITERRORIST WORKING GROUP
CUBAN NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Release Cuban Five or face Nuremberg, says Fidel Castro
Havana, Aug 15: President Fidel Castro said that true justice in the Cuban Five case will only occur when the men -considered national heroes on the island- are released and return to Cuba.
During an encounter Saturday in Havana with the mothers, spouses and children of the five Cubans imprisoned in the US for trying to prevent terrorist attacks against the island, Fidel Castro praised the decision made by three judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals of Appeals last Tuesday.
The judges unanimously overturned the lower court convictions. In their 93-page ruling the court acknowledged that the Cuban Five clearly did not and could not receive a fair trial in Miami.
President Castro said the best thing the Bush administration could do is immediately release the innocent Cubans. He said a new trial would be the worse alternative for the White House, since unlike the last trial, the entire world will be watching. The Cuban leader said a new trial would resemble Nuremberg as the crimes and support given by the Bush administration to terrorists based in US territory would be part of the testimony.
The lies will be exposed said Fidel Castro, as well as the cynicism and brutal way the five Cubans basic human rights have been violated by Washington. He said the decision by the Atlanta judges was an expression of the best traditions of the US people. "The Cuban Five will return home, have no doubts about it," he added.
While Washington continues to persecute five innocent men who had infiltrated Miami based terrorist organizations, Fidel Castro recalled how the Bush administration protects terrorists like Luis Posada Carriles.
Posada, an explosives expert and mastermind behind the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner killing all 73 persons on board, was also involved in several 1997 hotel bombings in Havana, numerous assassination attempts against Cuban officials and further plots against civilian aircraft.
Fidel challenged Washington to say if US authorities received information on terrorist plans denounced by the Cuban Five who, along their relatives have had to suffer much during their long seven years in prison.
Fidel warned Cubans to mobilize against any US attempt to use the Atlanta decision to justify the possible granting of asylum to Posada Carriles in US territory. "The original plan was to send him to El Salvador or anywhere else but to the country which has the right to try him," referring to Venezuela, which is demanding his extradition.
The Cuban President said there are two battles to wage; one is to demand the immediate release of the Cuban Five and the other is to demand the extradition of Posada Carriles to Venezuela. On the day of 79th birthday, he also praised the heroic resistance of the Cuban people against a nearly half century US economic blockade on the island.
http://www.ain.cubaweb.cu/idioma/ingles/2005/ago15fidel-loscinco.htm
Demand the Five's release today!
Solidarity movements can play an important role in keeping up the momentum in the global effort to Free the Cuban Five.
Cuban parliament president Ricardo Alarcon has called on the worldwide movement to bombard the US Justice deprtment with emails calling for the Five's immediate release and asking now for visiting rights for their families:
askdoj@usdoj.gov
Panelists on the Round Table Program broadcast on August 12 on Cuban television and radio discussd the role of the solidarity movements.
Coming just two days after an Atlanta appeals court overturned the Cuban Five's convictions and ordered a new trial, The Round Table program was broadcast for the first time from Venezuela. It had among the members of the panel several personalities of the world's progressive youth movements that are attending the
16th World Festival of Youth and Students.
Argentinean Claudia Camba, Coordinator of the International Front in support of the "Yo si puedo" (Yes I can) literacy program, stated that the news from the appeals court could not have come at a better moment.
Camba appealed to the thousands of delegates participating in the Festival to become spokespersons about the truth on the Cuban Five case in their countries. She said the court ruling made everyone happy, but that justice will only be done when Rene Gonzalez, Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez and Ramon Labanino are free to return to Cuba.
The Cuban Five have spent nearly seven years in US prisons for having infiltrated violent Miami based organizations with a long history of terrorist actions against Cuba but with close ties to the Bush administration.
Eva Galinger, a young Venezuelan-US lawyer and writer, said there is a lot of expectation at the festival for the beginning of the anti-imperialist tribunal where victims of imperialist aggressions from around the world, even including the United States, will speak on how they were affected by such actions.
Galinger, who is also the author of the book "El Codigo Chavez" (The Chavez Code) highlighted the support given to Venezuela by the delegations from 144 countries attending the Festival.
Tran Van Loc, a Vietnamese representative on the festival organizing committee, emphasized that his delegation brings a message of solidarity and against imperialism, and also demands justice for the victims of Agent Orange.
Van Loc recalled that between 1961 and 1972 the United States sprayed the highly toxic Agent Orange to wipe out the jungles of his nation in order to impede the movement of the liberation forces. He explained that this strategy turned into a full fledged chemical warfare because it damaged the soils, water resources, crops and humans.
In another moment of the Round Table, Claudia Camba stated that the youth event being held in Venezuela comes when US President George W. Bush believes he is the emperor of the world.
Young people have the monumental mission to save the planet, something that is not only possible but essential in order to preserve the human race, said Camba.
http://www.ain.cubaweb.cu/idioma/ingles/2005/ago12loscinco-lucha.htm
