The heads of state attending the XI Summit of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) approved a joint resolution demanding the immediate release of five Cubans imprisoned in the United States.

The president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, read the text, which denounced the years of unjust imprisonment, to which the five Cuban fighters were condemned on 1998, after being arrested for alleged espionage activities.

Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzales were actually Cuban agents monitoring hostile terrorist organizations based in Florida, which were planning violent actions against Cuba and its people.

The Five also provided the US Federal Bureau of Investigations with information on such events, after which the US authorities found and confiscated a large weapons cache in the Southern city of Miami.

The “Cuban Five”, as they’re internationally known, were jailed in September 1998 for reporting on violent schemes by far-right anti-Cuban groups based in Miami. They were then wrongly convicted in 2001 by a Florida court on alleged espionage charges. The Five were given excessively long sentences, put in separate jails in different parts of the country with periods of solitary confinement, and routinely denied visits by their family members, who are residing in Cuba.