By Prensa Latina,
Paris : Large international participation and high professional level of lawyers generated a rich debate here on the cases of five Cuban antiterrorist fighters unjustly held in US prisons.
A positive balance and a further step to publicize information about the lengthy unjust sentences handed over to the Cuban Five, as they are known worldwide, were the results of the colloquium.
They are Antonio Guerrero, Rene Gonzalez, Ramon Labañino, Gerardo Hernandez and Fernando Gonzalez, who were sentenced in a fixed trial that was denounced here.
Against the backdrop of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved in Paris 60 years ago, experts and relatives of the Cuban Five got together at the Medici Hall of the Palace of Luxemburg, before representatives from 17 countries.
The meeting, called by the International Association of Democratic Jurists (IADJ), contributed to boosting reflection among professionals, who can find new approaches to the struggle for the release of the Five.
According to lawyer Roberto Gonzalez Sehewert, Rene’s brother and a member of the defense team, and IADJ leader Nuri Albala, of France, the seminar followed up on their cases in a very constructive way.
The testimony of Magali Llort, Fernando Gonzalez’s mother, and the speeches by the defense attorney for Antonio Guerrero, US lawyer Leonard Weinglass, and the editor-in-chief of Le Monde Diplomatique, Maurice Lemoine, were highlighted at the meeting.
Other speakers at the colloquium were Bill Bowring (Great Britain), Fabio Marcelli (Italy), Anne Marie Barone (Switzerland), Jeanne Moutet (France), Amadou T. Diarra (Mali), Luciano Vasapollo (Italy) and Hugo Ruiz Diaz (American Lawyer’s Association).