6-09-08, 9:24 am
On Wednesday, June 4, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta issued its decision on the appeal submitted by the defense.
In a 99-page ruling, and by unanimous decision, the three judges upheld the guilty verdicts against the five Cuban patriots and annulled the sentences of three of them, who must be re-sentenced.
They ratified the sentences of René González (15 years in prison) and Gerardo Hernández (two life sentences plus 15 years).
The decision on Gerardo’s sentence was 2-1, not unanimous. Judge Kravitch said in a 16-page statement that the government failed to provide sufficient evidence to charge Gerardo with conspiracy to commit murder.
The cases of Ramón Labañino (life imprisonment plus 18 years), Fernando González (19 years) and Antonio Guerrero (life imprisonment plus 10 years) were sent back to federal court Judge Joan Lenard in Florida for re-sentencing.
Lenard must hold a new hearing to issue that ruling. This is the same judge who imposed the onerous and unjust sentences on the Five in 2001.
The Atlanta court ruled that the arguments of the defense lacked merit. The use of political terms in the court’s ruling is stunning; it is a far cry from legal institutions and it is pro-government.
The judges’ decision leaves open several contradictions between the opinions of two of them and the statement written and signed by Judge Pryor, an extremely conservative judge who was appointed thanks to the current Republican presidential candidate, McCain, despite Senate opposition.
Defense attorneys Weinglass, MacKenna and Horowitz said they would continue the legal battle begun in December 2001, when the Five were unjustly sentenced. Legally, there are roads to follow.
Beyond the all of the legal tricks used by the U.S. government to prolong the unjust imprisonment of our five brothers, this court ruling is not surprising; on the contrary, it reaffirms for us even more the need to continue fighting tirelessly to expose this colossal injustice.
Once more, the cynicism of the U.S. government has been laid bare; on that same day, in another U.S. city, it continued with its farce to protect the criminal Luis Posada Carriles, who is enjoying total freedom, instead of classifying him as a terrorist for his crimes against humanity and extraditing him to Venezuela, whose government has been asking for that for three years, given that he is a fugitive of that country’s justice system.
For Gerardo, the ruling is not surprising. 'This is the same justice system that has kept Mumia, Leonard Peltier and the Puerto Rican political prisoners incarcerated for more than 20 years,' he told us this morning. 'We’ll do all the time we have to do, 30 years, 40, whatever, and as long as a single one of you is outside resisting, we are also going to resist, until justice is done.'
Gerardo asked us to transmit all of his confidence. 'Tell everyone who asks that I am fine and feeling strong, and to keep up the fight.'
Together with our friends, committees and brothers and sisters of the world, we call for redoubling the demand for freedom for the Five, to mobilize starting tomorrow, June 6, in every way possible, as we will do in the United States, Europe and Latin America, in front of the offices of the terrorist government of the United States, which is keeping our five brothers in prison.
Only solidarity, constant denunciation and international mobilization will achieve freedom for the Five.
International Committee to Free the Five
