By Prensa Latina,
Washington : The National Committee for the Release of five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters, unfairly imprisoned in US jails, called to stage demonstrations in several US cities, responding to the verdict of a federal appeals court.
In a press release, the organization urged followers to organize marches in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Miami, Detroit and other cities on Thursday and Friday, to demand the freedom of those men.
The call also exhorts to stage protests in front of federal government’s buildings, US embassies, consulates and other dependencies abroad.
The organization also states that the panel of three judges assigned by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, in an unusual verdict, denied the Five’s defense team an appeal, and confirmed all charges for which the five men have been sentenced.
Among those are conspiracy to spying and commit murder.
Ramon Labanino, Fernando Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernandez and Rene Gonzalez have been serving harsh sentences in US prisons since September 12, 1998, for merely defending their country from violent actions by anti-Cuban groups settled in that northern nation.
They sentences run from 15 years to double life terms, the latter to Gerardo.
The panel annulled Wednesday some charges for three of them, which will now have to be evaluated once more in Miami.
The 99-page verdict orders to analyze in that southern city the cases of Ramon, sentenced to life imprisonment plus 18 years of jail, Fernando, to 19 years of being deprived of his freedom, and Antonio, life imprisonment plus ten years.
Sentences for Rene of 15 years and Gerardo, double life imprisonment plus fifteen years remained unchanged.
Last August 20, lawyers of the Five denounced at the Atlanta Court of Appeal political manipulations of the judiciary process used for the imprisonment of the Five, as they are universally known.
Their defenders centered on three topics: the accusation of conspiracy to murder against Gerardo Hernandez, that of espionage against Gerardo, Antonio and Ramon, and bad behavior by US attorney John Kastrenakes.