The defense team of Gerardo Hernandez, one of the five Cuban antiterrorists imprisoned in the United States, will apply for habeas corpus before June 14, in favor of the prisoner, who was sentenced to double life and 15 years in jail.
The habeas corpus will be presented to Miami's Federal Court Judge Joan Lenard, who sentenced him in 2001, reported Prensa Latina.
The defense expects the court to reconsider the case of Hernandez, currently serving the harshest sentences. Hernandez and Rene Gonzalez, who was sentenced to 15 years, were excluded from the resentencing hearing held in late 2009 in Miami, in which Ramon Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando Gonzalez received new sentences.
The habeas corpus aims to ask the court to at least lift Hernandez' double life imprisonment.
In a statement after the resentencing hearing for Labañino, Guerrero and Gonzalez, the three men reiterated their innocence and said that the Cuban Five, as they are internationally known, were punished for accusations that have never been proven.
They added that while three sentences were partially reduced, the Cuban Five are still all subject to a grave injustice. More than anything, the three men spoke about the injustice in the case of Hernandez, who was confined to a maximum security prison in Adelanto, California.
In a trial plagued with irregularities and held in a highly biased Miami court, the Cuban Five were given harsh sentences ranging from 15 years to consecutive life terms plus 15 years. The five Cubans were working to uncover information about terrorist activities being planned and carried out against Cuba by ultra-rightwing organizations based in southern Florida with a long record of terrorist actions against Cuba and the Cuban people. When they turned their information over to authorities they were arrested and have been in jail ever since.
A UN Working Group reviewing the case determined that the trial did not take place in a climate of objectivity and impartiality, which is required in order to conclude on the observance of the standards of a fair trial. The UN report also charges that the Cuban Five were wrongfully held for seventeen months in solitary confinement after their arrest, and that their lawyers were deprived of the opportunity to examine all of the available evidence before the government invoked the Classified Information Protection Act.
Shortly following the UN ruling, on August 9, 2005, a three judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals of Atlanta issued a 93-page reversal of the initial conviction as well as nullified the sentences. In response to the reversal, the Bush administration and Attorney General Gonzales vehemently pushed for the US Solicitor General to appeal the verdict of the three-judge panel’s decision before all twelve judges of the 11th circuit in Atlanta. This time the court bowed down to pressure from the Bush administration and reversed the previous pro-Cuban Five ruling by a vote of 10-2.
The Five have been in jail since September 12, 1998.
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