Prestigious Chilean lawyer Juan Guzman, who was responsible for nearly one hundred complaints against dictator Augusto Pinochet, said the trial against the five Cuban antiterrorist fighters unjustly held in the United States lacks any support.
In remarks to Prensa Latina, the former judge from the Court of Appeal in Santiago stated he knew the court file of those Cubans and he could notice "that in the background, with mere appreciation, a crime that never existed was made up."
"They invented a charge, that of having endangered the United States national security, something the U.S. military itself denied at the hearing," said Guzman, who attended as an observer in 2007 the process presented by defense lawyers in the Court of Appeals in Atlanta.
In the trial, which began in the fall of 2000 and lasted seven months, experts such as the then head of the Southern Command, General Charles Whilhem, and retired Gen. Edward Atkinson, Admiral Eugene Carol, Colonel George Busckner, and even former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency James Clapper denied that the Five had access to classified or secret data.
In his opinion, this attitude of justice is very striking, "because what matters in that kind of trial is the report of those who have knowledge of science or an art, and the issue of militaries, generals, is precisely the danger of certain national or international events, "stated Guzman, who also prosecuted many state officials for violations of human rights in Chile.
Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez were detained in Miami early Saturday, September 12, 1998, and imprisoned for the next 17 months in solitary confinement, alone.
They were finally condemned to harsh sentences ranging from 15 years to two life terms plus 15 years, the latter imposed to Gerardo Hernandez.
Rene Gonzalez completed his prison term on October 7, 2011, but must remain for three years on supervised release in the United States.
After being tried in 2000 in Miami, the Five complained to the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, located outside Florida, in Atlanta, Georgia.
After a thorough review of the documents, on August 9, 2005, a panel of three judges appointed by the Court issued its opinion, a detailed 93-page analysis of the trial and evidence, reversing the convictions and sentences , on the basis that they did not receive a fair trial in Miami. A new trial was ordered.
However, in August 2006, that Court reversed that decision.
The lawyer confessed that with the arrival of Barack Obama to the White House, he had hopes that he issued an amnesty law that favored the Five, as they are universaly known for their liberation campaigns.