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US Historian Calls Imprisonment of Cuban Anti-terrorists as Disgrace

U.S. historian and analyst James Cockcroft says he considers it a disgrace for the legal system of his country that four of five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters arrested on September 12, 1998 in Miami are still in prison.

In exclusive statements to Prensa Latina via email, Cockcroft called for the immediate unconditional release of Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, and Fernando Gonzalez.

Rene Gonzalez was released from prison in 2011 after completing his sentence, and commenting on this, Cockcroft said, "15 years in captivity is shameful, 15 years, enough already."

Referring to disclosures about 44 journalists from Miami, secretly paid by the government to write inflammatory articles against the Five, Cockcroft said that the State Department had been sued in federal court to force it to disclose the materials in its possession on this issue.

However, "the Five will not be released through legal proceedings because they are political prisoners. Only the increasing pressure of public opinion in the United States and around the world, will achieve the return of Fernando, Gerardo, Ramon, and Tony to Cuba," he pointed out.

In terms of U.S. law and the Constitution, the Habeas Corpus petition is one avenue for the immediate release of the Five, but the judicial system will not do such a thing without immense public pressure or action from President Barack Obama, Cockcroft warned.

A member of the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five and La Table de Concertation de Solidarité Québec-Cuba, Cockcroft also insisted that the democratic president should use his prerogatives under the Constitution and, for humanitarian reasons, "release them, so they can return to Cuba without conditions."

The Five were arrested while monitoring plans by violent groups based in southern Florida who were dedicated to planning the kinds of terrorist actions against Cuba that have caused more than 5,000 deaths and permanent injuries over the last 50 years.

Source: 

Prensa Latina

Date: 

14/10/2013