Two associates of confessed terrrorist Luis Posada Carriles avoided detention after a federal judge in Texas decided not to jail them for refusing to answer grand jury questions on whether the Cuban exile militant sneaked into the United States by land through Mexico or by sea with Miami friends' help.
José ''Pepín'' Pujol and Rubén López Castro appeared Tuesday at the U.S. courthouse in El Paso to face contempt charges for declining to answer grand jury questions. Friends said Pujol, 77, and López Castro, 67, had expected to be arrested but were not. A third Posada associate, Ernesto Abreu, 43, was arrested July 6 and remains in detention after also declining to answer grand jury questions.
Pujol's attorney, Luis Fernández, declined to comment because the federal judge in the case had issued a gag order.
But friends of Pujol and López Castro confirmed that both had appeared in court and were not jailed because the judge concluded that detention would not coerce them into talking.
López Castro's attorney could not be reached for comment.
Shana Jones, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas in San Antonio, declined to talk about the matter.
Posada has told U.S. officials that he sneaked in by land across the Mexican border. Cuba has claimed that Posada was smuggled into Miami from Isla Mujeres, Mexico, aboard a boat called Santrina.
The shrimping vessel is owned by a foundation linked to Posada's chief South Florida benefactor, Santiago Alvarez, now in jail and scheduled for trial next month on weapons charges.
Posada asked a federal magistrate Monday to free him from immigration custody in El Paso. Pujol and López Castro were at the hearing. Magistrate Norbert Garney said he would issue his decision soon. Source: Miami Herald 17.8.06

Two associates of confessed terrrorist Luis Posada Carriles avoided detention after a federal judge in Texas decided not to jail them for refusing to answer grand jury questions on whether the Cuban exile militant sneaked into the United States by land through Mexico or by sea with Miami friends' help.
José ''Pepín'' Pujol and Rubén López Castro appeared Tuesday at the U.S. courthouse in El Paso to face contempt charges for declining to answer grand jury questions. Friends said Pujol, 77, and López Castro, 67, had expected to be arrested but were not. A third Posada associate, Ernesto Abreu, 43, was arrested July 6 and remains in detention after also declining to answer grand jury questions.
Pujol's attorney, Luis Fernández, declined to comment because the federal judge in the case had issued a gag order.
But friends of Pujol and López Castro confirmed that both had appeared in court and were not jailed because the judge concluded that detention would not coerce them into talking.
López Castro's attorney could not be reached for comment.
Shana Jones, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas in San Antonio, declined to talk about the matter.
Posada has told U.S. officials that he sneaked in by land across the Mexican border. Cuba has claimed that Posada was smuggled into Miami from Isla Mujeres, Mexico, aboard a boat called Santrina.
The shrimping vessel is owned by a foundation linked to Posada's chief South Florida benefactor, Santiago Alvarez, now in jail and scheduled for trial next month on weapons charges.
Posada asked a federal magistrate Monday to free him from immigration custody in El Paso. Pujol and López Castro were at the hearing. Magistrate Norbert Garney said he would issue his decision soon. Source: Miami Herald 17.8.06

Two associates of confessed terrrorist Luis Posada Carriles avoided detention after a federal judge in Texas decided not to jail them for refusing to answer grand jury questions on whether the Cuban exile militant sneaked into the United States by land through Mexico or by sea with Miami friends' help.
José ''Pepín'' Pujol and Rubén López Castro appeared Tuesday at the U.S. courthouse in El Paso to face contempt charges for declining to answer grand jury questions. Friends said Pujol, 77, and López Castro, 67, had expected to be arrested but were not. A third Posada associate, Ernesto Abreu, 43, was arrested July 6 and remains in detention after also declining to answer grand jury questions.
Pujol's attorney, Luis Fernández, declined to comment because the federal judge in the case had issued a gag order.
But friends of Pujol and López Castro confirmed that both had appeared in court and were not jailed because the judge concluded that detention would not coerce them into talking.
López Castro's attorney could not be reached for comment.
Shana Jones, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas in San Antonio, declined to talk about the matter.
Posada has told U.S. officials that he sneaked in by land across the Mexican border. Cuba has claimed that Posada was smuggled into Miami from Isla Mujeres, Mexico, aboard a boat called Santrina.
The shrimping vessel is owned by a foundation linked to Posada's chief South Florida benefactor, Santiago Alvarez, now in jail and scheduled for trial next month on weapons charges.
Posada asked a federal magistrate Monday to free him from immigration custody in El Paso. Pujol and López Castro were at the hearing. Magistrate Norbert Garney said he would issue his decision soon. Source: Miami Herald 17.8.06

The Los Angeles Times published a significant article Aug. 19 on the Cuban Five.

Articles appeared in other press from Reuters and AP articles, including the Miami Herald.
The L.A. Times article, the Miami Herald and other articles reflect the efforts of their appeals attorneys, the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, the National Lawyers Guild, and many other organizations, to help win their freedom.
Anti-Castro Disclosures Could Help 'Cuban Five'
Convicted in Miami on espionage charges five years ago, the exiles may still win a new trial.
By Carol J. WilliamsTimes Staff Writer
August 19, 2006
MIAMI Attorneys for five Cubans convicted of espionage are hoping new disclosures about exile-sponsored plots to kill Fidel Castro could win a new trial for the men, now serving sentences of 15 years to life in maximum-security prisons.
More than five years after their convictions, the case of the Cuban Five - or the Five Heroes, as they are known throughout Cuba - remains a cause celebre on both sides of the Florida Straits. Havana authorities cast the five as victims of exile vengeance. Many Cuban Americans here see them as Castro emissaries bent on undermining U.S. security.
The Cubans fought the federal charges of conspiracy to commit espionage during their 2001 trial by arguing that they were here to infiltrate radical Cuban exile groups that had devised and executed dozens of missions to topple the Communist government in Cuba, or at least its bearded leader.
Among the developments is the admission by Jose Antonio Llama, a 75-year-old exile, that he financed a 1997 mission to kill Castro for which he had already been tried and acquitted.
In addition to Llama's admission, Robert Ferro, a Cuban exile in Upland, Calif., said in April that he collected 1,500 guns and grenades for an assault on Cuba during U.S. military exercises in the Caribbean in May. Ferro was charged with illegal weapons possession. And trial begins next month in the case of Miami developer Santiago Alvarez on charges of amassing guns last year for an attack on Castro.
"We are following these new developments and when we feel we are closer to having the full story, we will be bringing it to a court's attention," said Leonard Weinglass, the civil rights attorney handling appeals for Antonio Guerrero, who is serving a life sentence in Colorado. "But it's not quite ripe for action yet."
The New York-based National Committee to Free the Cuban Five has conscripted high-powered legal help from the National Lawyers Guild and announced a Sept. 23 march in Washington to demand that President Bush free the Cubans.
"The Five should never have been arrested. They were fighting terrorism," said Gloria La Riva, committee coordinator. "New terrorist plots have been revealed since their convictions in Miami which give further weight to the arguments that Miami was a place where they should never have been tried."
Earlier this month, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta rejected a new trial sought on grounds that the men's 2001 process was conducted in a tainted venue: emotionally charged Miami after the Elian Gonzalez custody battle. The Aug. 9 ruling was a setback, but "not the end of the case ? far from it," said Weinglass.
He noted that the appeals court had yet to rule on nine challenges to the Miami federal court conviction.
Llama confirmed anti-Castro actions in interviews in recent weeks, including with The Times, in which he accused five different exiles of selling $1.4 million in equipment he bought for the 1997 operation.
The group planned to "eliminate" Castro during his visit to Venezuela's Isla de Margarita that year, but the Puerto Rican Coast Guard intercepted Llama's cabin cruiser ferrying four men and the weapons. Llama said his fellow plotters sold a cargo helicopter, 10 aircraft, seven boats and weapons while he was on trial in San Juan. He was later acquitted, for lack of evidence, of conspiracy to murder a head of state.
"I understand the implications" for bolstering the defense of the Cuban Five, Llama said of his admissions.
Richard Klugh, who represents Fernando Gonzalez, serving a 19-year sentence at a federal prison in Wisconsin, says the newly emerged anti-Castro actions could justify a new trial but alluded to growing disillusionment among defense attorneys.
"It all adds up, and it really should be filed," Klugh said of the potential grounds for a new trial. "But I'm exhausted. I hate to complain. I pick up my paycheck. But this case really saps the life out of you." Klugh points out the five were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage without ever having spied. No evidence was presented suggesting any of the five had obtained classified information.
Three are serving life sentences, including alleged ringleader Gerardo Hernandez, found guilty of murder conspiracy based on allegations he provided intelligence to Havana that led to the deaths of four exiles shot down by Cuban MiGs in 1996.
"Were they here to hurt the United States, or were they here to protect Cuba from crime and violence?" Klugh asks of the five. "It really goes to the core of the case."

Injustice against the Five and impunity for terrorism

BY ORLANDO ORAMAS LEON— Granma daily staff writer—
GERARDO, Ramón, René, Fernando and Antonio are still behind bars in the United States, three of them in maximum security prisons, and all of them subjected to the hateful revenge of those in Washington who have made them the target of reprisals against the Cuban Revolution.
The "hole," lack of communication, and psychological pressures are some of the weapons that have been used to try to break their integrity, in addition to the unjust and rigged trial that put them in jail.
Recently Gerardo has been informed that his correspondence will be delayed for several months. What a paradox, while at the same time terrorist Orlando Bosch, who is enjoying a pardon granted by the United States, is openly proclaiming his crimes, including the sabotage of a Cubana Aviation passenger plane in October 1976 and several assassination attempts against President Fidel Castro.
Thus, when the U.S. 11th Court of Appeals of Atlanta has decided not to accept the considerations of three judges regarding the need for a retrial for the Five due to the biased atmosphere of Miami, Bosch is making makes statements to the Barcelona daily La Vanguardia boasting of his crimes.
This is further evidence of the double standard of the Bush administration’s supposed global crusade against terrorism, which holds the five Cubans as political hostages while turning a blind eye to the confessions of anti-Cuba terrorists recently published in the U.S. press.
Writing in the Los Angeles Times, published in California near where Gerardo is serving two life terms plus 15 years, Carol J. Williams maintains that conspiracies such as those of Robert Ferro (caught with more than 1,500 weapons), the purchase of arms and helicopters revealed by José Antonio Llama, and other anti-Cuba plots should help the judicial cause of our brothers.
In other words, those conspiracies confirm Cuba’s need for these patriots’ mission to infiltrate Miami criminal groups in order to prevent terrorist attacks against the island, given that more than 3,000 people have already been killed along with a similar number of wounded and incapacitated, superseding the tragic balance of those killed in the attack on the Twin Towers.
The statements of Bosch, the doctor of death, were corroborated in the Times article.
He confirmed to La Vanguardia that "there were many attempts" to kill Fidel. He also told of the plan to assassinate the Cuban president in Chile in 1971, as well as the attempt on the Cuban ambassador in Buenos Aires. "Afterwards we did a thousand things," gloated the man pardoned by George Bush Sr.
He also bragged about the Barbados crime. "For me (that plane with 73 passengers on board) is a war target," and he continued "Communists all of them. The athletes were wearing five gold medals for fencing… it was Fidel’s glory…"
It would never occur to anyone in the United States to publicly admit to plotting a bomb attack, or to having done so in the past. It would mean prison for sure, unless the target was Cuba, which the White House has a permanent need to destroy.

IADL's Statement on the ruling of the 11th Circuit in the case of the Cuban Five

antiterroristas.cu

2006-08-16

INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF DEMOCRATIC LAWYERS
Office of the President 17, Lawyers Chamber, Supreme Court, New Delhi-110001, INDIA Tel:+00 91 11 2338 2271 Fax:+00 91 1214 410 2963 e-mail <jsharma@vsnl.com>

STATEMENT ON THE RULING OF THE 11TH CIRCUIT IN THE CASE OF THE CUBAN FIVE
The International Association of Democratic Lawyers,(IADL)a non-governmental organization of Jurists with National Affiliates on all continents, and in consultative status with ECOSOC, expresses its grave disappointment that the majority of the 11th Circuit Judges ruled to deny a new trial to the Cuban Five.
The Cuban Five, Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González, were arrested in 1998, denied bail and convicted in 2001 based on politically motivated charges stemming from their work to prevent terrorist or other attacks on Cuba. Gerardo Hernández was given two life sentences. Antonio Guerrero, and Ramón Labañino, were given life sentences. Fernando González, and René González were given sentences of 19 years and 15 years respectively.
IADL proclaims that these are unconscionable sentences; The evidence on which the Five were convicted does not support the verdicts; and Miami was the wrong venue in which to try these cases. IADL points out that in May of 2005, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of the Human Rights Commission found that the trial and the convictions of the Five were in contravention to Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which provides that "everyone shall be entitled to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law" The panel of 11th Circuit Judges who heard the oral arguments in February of 2004 received argument on the lack of evidence to support the charges and the claims that the trial judge erred in not changing venue, and ruled that a new trial was required because the trial should not have taken place in Miami which the panel characterized as a "perfect storm of prejudice". IADL submitted an amicus brief emphasizing the denial of a fair trial when the Judge refused to move it out of Maimi. IADL states unequivocally that the findings of the original panel of Judges were factually and legally sound. The en banc ruling is a travesty of justice. It evidences no concerns for the rights of defendants' to a fair trial. The Majority of the 11th Circuit Judges ignored the findings of the original panel with respect to prejudice. The dissenting Judges, who were the members of the original panel, commented on this "omission of fact" in the majority opinion. Given the overwhelming evidence of community prejudice against anyone supportive of the Cuban Government, the failure of the majority to even mention this prejudice is gravely disturbing . IADL, therefore, believes this to be a politically motivated decision designed to appease the Cuban community in Miami. This community has been involved in terrorist acts against the Cuban government and the Cuban people for many years. The work of the Cuban Five was aimed at preventing further actions and to defend Cuba. The information that they gathered from public facts and developed was used by the Cuban government to support its protests to the US State Department against illegal overflights by such groups as "Brothers to the Rescue". Instead of attempting to curb this illegal activity the FBI turned its spotlight on finding those who were providing the evidence of illegal actions. This ruling is not the end of the appeal process. The decision of the 11th Circuit at Atlanta may be appealed to the US Supreme Court. The panel still has not ruled on the errors in the trial other than venue which have been raised in the Appeals of the Cuban Five and these must be ruled upon. The lawyers for the five will make that determination. IADL will continue to support the Cuban Five in their efforts to get justice, be freed from prison, and to get their convictions reversed. Jitendra Sharma President
Ms.Jeanne Mirer Secretary General
Issued on August 12, 2006