Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, of Richmond, California, called for the government of her country to listen to the arguments that support the innocence of Gerardo Hernandez, one of the Cuban anti-terrorist fighters unjustly held in the United States since 1998.

Hernandez "had nothing to do with the downing of two planes from the terrorist organization Brothers to the Rescue in 1996," McLaughlin told Prensa Latina.

McLaughlin stated that the government of her country should allow Gerardo Hernandez "to see the alleged evidence used against him that sentenced him to spend the rest of his life in prison."

McLaughlin supported the lawsuit filed in 2010 by the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law of Los Angeles, arguing that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requires transparency from the U.S. government.

For the charge of conspiracy to commit murder, based on the incident with the planes, a Miami court sentenced Gerardo Hernandez in December 2001 to the life terms weighing against him.

Gayle McLaughlin has repeatedly expressed solidarity with the cause of the Cuban Five, as Hernandez, Ramon Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez are known worldwide, (the latter on supervised release in the United States since 2011).

The Five were detained on September 12, 1998 in Miami, while monitoring criminal actions planned, financed and executed by Cuban extremist groups that have caused more than 3,400 casualties on the island over the last five decades.