resisting arrest with violence
10th August 2005, 14:36
Posted on Wed, Aug. 10, 2005
CUBAN SPY TRIAL
Court overturns spy verdicts
The convictions of five accused Cuban spies in a Miami trial were thrown out by an appellate court. A retrial is expected.
BY SCOTT HIAASEN, LUISA YANEZ AND DAVID OVALLE
[email protected]
A federal appeals court on Tuesday threw out the convictions of five accused Cuban spies, finding that the volatile mix of Miami's anti-Castro political climate and intense media coverage -- both amplified in the wake of the Elián González drama -- made a fair trial in the city an impossibility.
The decision by a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals means that the five Miami men -- convicted in June 2001 of infiltrating Miami's exile community and trying to pass U.S. military secrets to Havana -- will have a new trial. But not in Miami.
In its 93-page opinion, the court found the six-month trial was hopelessly inundated with news coverage and public protests, while the community was already saturated with stories about the Elián case, an immigration agent charged with spying for Fidel Castro and local bans on doing business with Cuba.
The court also said prosecutors made improper comments during the trial, as did José Basulto, the founder of Brothers to the Rescue, who implied from the witness stand that one of the defense lawyers was a Cuban agent.
''A new trial was mandated by the perfect storm created when the surge of pervasive community sentiment and extensive publicity both before and during the trial merged with the improper prosecutorial references,'' the court said.
But at least one juror said she didn't feel nearly as pressured by anti-Castro sentiment as the appeals court believed.
''As far as I'm concerned, the verdict we reached had nothing to do with the community. The verdict we reached was because of the evidence presented to us,'' Omaira Garcia said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
''I felt no pressure at all, and I'm sure the other jurors didn't either,'' said Garcia, a legal assistant.
Lawyers for the defendants -- Gerardo Hernández, Fernando González, Antonio Guerrero, René González and Ramón Labañino -- cheered the ruling, praising the court for taking a position that would no doubt be unpopular in Miami.
''I have new faith in the court of appeals and the system of laws,'' said Paul McKenna, who represented Hernández. ``The trial was infected with prejudice from the beginning to the end.''
The defense lawyers first asked U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard to move the trial out of Miami in January 2000 and said Fort Lauderdale would be a better venue.
At the time, the federal government was seeking to send 6-year-old rafter Elián González back to Cuba to live with his father, raising a furor in Miami's Cuban-American community.
GOVERNMENT CASE
The verdict in the spy trial was undone in part by the government's stance in a separate civil case that spun out of the Elián case: Defending an employment lawsuit brought by immigration agent Ricardo Ramirez, government lawyers said they could not get a fair trial in Miami. They said the community had become too polarized after the INS raid that sent Elián back to Cuba.
Defense lawyers for the accused spies then used the government's pleadings to persuade the appeals court that it was unfair to hold the spy trial in Miami as well.
Former U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis, whose office dedicated thousands of hours and millions of dollars to its pursuit of the accused spies, said the trial judge went to great lengths to make sure the trial was fair.
''I think the court is wrong,'' said Lewis, now a lawyer in private practice. ``What they are saying is that you can't get a fair trial here in South Florida.''
Federal prosecutors did not comment on Tuesday's decision, though they are certain to pursue a retrial of the five men, who were convicted of 23 spying-related charges.
After their convictions, Hernández, Labañino and Guerrero all received life sentences from Lenard. Hernández was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder for his alleged role in the 1996 shooting by Cuban fighters of two Brothers to the Rescue planes over international waters. Four people died in the shooting.
René González, a pilot accused of faking his defection to insinuate himself into Brothers to the Rescue, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Fernando González, no relation, was convicted of trying to infiltrate the offices of Cuban-American politicians and shadowing prominent exiles, including one-time accused airplane bomber Orlando Bosch; González was sentenced to 19 years.
The five men were arrested in 1998 as U.S. agents dismantled a Cuban spy network called La Red Avispa, the Wasp Network. Prosecutors said the ring infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue and other Miami-area exile groups, spreading disinformation and spying for Castro. Some were also accused of trying to gather intelligence about the U.S. military; Guerrero was a laborer at the Boca Chica Naval Air Station near Key West.
DISCS SEIZED
The FBI seized coded computer disks containing 2,000 messages among the defendants and their handlers in Havana, prosecutors said. Federal agents also found shortwave radio messages from Cuba warning that René Gonzalez and another pilot should not fly with the Brothers around the time of the shoot-down.
Defense lawyers essentially conceded that the five were working on behalf of the Cuban government but said they were simply trying to protect their homeland from exile groups and did not try to gather military secrets.
Tuesday's court ruling dismayed many in Miami's Cuban community, especially the relatives of the pilots from Brothers to the Rescue, an organization that flew small planes across the Florida Straits in search of rafters fleeing Cuba.
`DISAPPOINTED'
''We are extremely disappointed,'' said Maggie Alejandre Khuly, whose brother, Armando Alejandre Jr., was one of those shot down on Feb. 24, 1996. ``I sat at the trial every day, and I don't think I saw any miscarriage of justice. But we firmly believe and respect the American justice system.''
Basulto said he didn't believe there was any undue influence on the jurors, none of whom were Cuban American.
''I'm very disappointed in their decision. They were convicted by a jury of their peers,'' he said. ``If they are retried, they will again be found guilty.''
But the court found that, in some cases, if the climate outside the courthouse is too hostile, ``it is unnecessary to prove that local prejudice actually entered the jury box.''
McKenna said he will try to get Hernández released on bail after seven years in custody. And the San Francisco-based National Committee to Free the Cuban Five said it would ask the Justice Department to allow the wives of Hernández and René González to travel from Cuba to the United States to visit their spouses.
Olga Salanueva, wife of prisoner René González, told Cuban broadcasters that she was overjoyed, according to the Associated Press. ''It's been many years since I've received such good news,'' she said.
DECISION CHEERED
In Cuba, where the five men have been portrayed as heroic patriots since their arrest in 1998, the court's decision was hailed.
''This is a victory against those who promote terrorism, against hypocrites who tout a supposed war on terror and in reality protect terrorists and jail young men who only acted to oppose terrorism in the United States,'' National Assembly speaker Ricardo Alarcon told Agence France-Presse. He called on the U.S. government to free the five men from prison.
The court's ruling comes less than a month after a U.N. panel ruled that the detention of the five men was arbitrary and in violation of international law. The judgment came from the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, part of the Geneva-based U.N. Commission on Human Rights.
It found the five were denied full access to evidence and to their lawyers, but a senior State Department official told The Herald at the time that the ruling was a ''politically motivated'' maneuver orchestrated by the Cuban government.
State Department officials did not comment on Tuesday's federal appeals ruling, calling it ``a judicial and law enforcement matter.''
Some in Miami found the federal appeals court's language condescending and insulting.
The court concluded it's ruling by praising the ''traditional values'' of the Cuban-American community and saying: ``We trust that any disappointment with our judgment in this case will be tempered and balanced by the recognition that we are a nation of laws in which every defendant, no matter how unpopular, must be treated fairly.''
''We are sensitive about Cuban issues, that's true, but this is insulting to exiles,'' said Manny Vazquez, an attorney for the Cuban American National Foundation. ``We are a peaceful community, and yes, we want a change in government in Cuba, but we want it in a peaceful way.''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© 2005 Herald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miami.com
CUBAN SPY TRIAL
Court overturns spy verdicts
The convictions of five accused Cuban spies in a Miami trial were thrown out by an appellate court. A retrial is expected.
BY SCOTT HIAASEN, LUISA YANEZ AND DAVID OVALLE
[email protected]
A federal appeals court on Tuesday threw out the convictions of five accused Cuban spies, finding that the volatile mix of Miami's anti-Castro political climate and intense media coverage -- both amplified in the wake of the Elián González drama -- made a fair trial in the city an impossibility.
The decision by a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals means that the five Miami men -- convicted in June 2001 of infiltrating Miami's exile community and trying to pass U.S. military secrets to Havana -- will have a new trial. But not in Miami.
In its 93-page opinion, the court found the six-month trial was hopelessly inundated with news coverage and public protests, while the community was already saturated with stories about the Elián case, an immigration agent charged with spying for Fidel Castro and local bans on doing business with Cuba.
The court also said prosecutors made improper comments during the trial, as did José Basulto, the founder of Brothers to the Rescue, who implied from the witness stand that one of the defense lawyers was a Cuban agent.
''A new trial was mandated by the perfect storm created when the surge of pervasive community sentiment and extensive publicity both before and during the trial merged with the improper prosecutorial references,'' the court said.
But at least one juror said she didn't feel nearly as pressured by anti-Castro sentiment as the appeals court believed.
''As far as I'm concerned, the verdict we reached had nothing to do with the community. The verdict we reached was because of the evidence presented to us,'' Omaira Garcia said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
''I felt no pressure at all, and I'm sure the other jurors didn't either,'' said Garcia, a legal assistant.
Lawyers for the defendants -- Gerardo Hernández, Fernando González, Antonio Guerrero, René González and Ramón Labañino -- cheered the ruling, praising the court for taking a position that would no doubt be unpopular in Miami.
''I have new faith in the court of appeals and the system of laws,'' said Paul McKenna, who represented Hernández. ``The trial was infected with prejudice from the beginning to the end.''
The defense lawyers first asked U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard to move the trial out of Miami in January 2000 and said Fort Lauderdale would be a better venue.
At the time, the federal government was seeking to send 6-year-old rafter Elián González back to Cuba to live with his father, raising a furor in Miami's Cuban-American community.
GOVERNMENT CASE
The verdict in the spy trial was undone in part by the government's stance in a separate civil case that spun out of the Elián case: Defending an employment lawsuit brought by immigration agent Ricardo Ramirez, government lawyers said they could not get a fair trial in Miami. They said the community had become too polarized after the INS raid that sent Elián back to Cuba.
Defense lawyers for the accused spies then used the government's pleadings to persuade the appeals court that it was unfair to hold the spy trial in Miami as well.
Former U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis, whose office dedicated thousands of hours and millions of dollars to its pursuit of the accused spies, said the trial judge went to great lengths to make sure the trial was fair.
''I think the court is wrong,'' said Lewis, now a lawyer in private practice. ``What they are saying is that you can't get a fair trial here in South Florida.''
Federal prosecutors did not comment on Tuesday's decision, though they are certain to pursue a retrial of the five men, who were convicted of 23 spying-related charges.
After their convictions, Hernández, Labañino and Guerrero all received life sentences from Lenard. Hernández was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder for his alleged role in the 1996 shooting by Cuban fighters of two Brothers to the Rescue planes over international waters. Four people died in the shooting.
René González, a pilot accused of faking his defection to insinuate himself into Brothers to the Rescue, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Fernando González, no relation, was convicted of trying to infiltrate the offices of Cuban-American politicians and shadowing prominent exiles, including one-time accused airplane bomber Orlando Bosch; González was sentenced to 19 years.
The five men were arrested in 1998 as U.S. agents dismantled a Cuban spy network called La Red Avispa, the Wasp Network. Prosecutors said the ring infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue and other Miami-area exile groups, spreading disinformation and spying for Castro. Some were also accused of trying to gather intelligence about the U.S. military; Guerrero was a laborer at the Boca Chica Naval Air Station near Key West.
DISCS SEIZED
The FBI seized coded computer disks containing 2,000 messages among the defendants and their handlers in Havana, prosecutors said. Federal agents also found shortwave radio messages from Cuba warning that René Gonzalez and another pilot should not fly with the Brothers around the time of the shoot-down.
Defense lawyers essentially conceded that the five were working on behalf of the Cuban government but said they were simply trying to protect their homeland from exile groups and did not try to gather military secrets.
Tuesday's court ruling dismayed many in Miami's Cuban community, especially the relatives of the pilots from Brothers to the Rescue, an organization that flew small planes across the Florida Straits in search of rafters fleeing Cuba.
`DISAPPOINTED'
''We are extremely disappointed,'' said Maggie Alejandre Khuly, whose brother, Armando Alejandre Jr., was one of those shot down on Feb. 24, 1996. ``I sat at the trial every day, and I don't think I saw any miscarriage of justice. But we firmly believe and respect the American justice system.''
Basulto said he didn't believe there was any undue influence on the jurors, none of whom were Cuban American.
''I'm very disappointed in their decision. They were convicted by a jury of their peers,'' he said. ``If they are retried, they will again be found guilty.''
But the court found that, in some cases, if the climate outside the courthouse is too hostile, ``it is unnecessary to prove that local prejudice actually entered the jury box.''
McKenna said he will try to get Hernández released on bail after seven years in custody. And the San Francisco-based National Committee to Free the Cuban Five said it would ask the Justice Department to allow the wives of Hernández and René González to travel from Cuba to the United States to visit their spouses.
Olga Salanueva, wife of prisoner René González, told Cuban broadcasters that she was overjoyed, according to the Associated Press. ''It's been many years since I've received such good news,'' she said.
DECISION CHEERED
In Cuba, where the five men have been portrayed as heroic patriots since their arrest in 1998, the court's decision was hailed.
''This is a victory against those who promote terrorism, against hypocrites who tout a supposed war on terror and in reality protect terrorists and jail young men who only acted to oppose terrorism in the United States,'' National Assembly speaker Ricardo Alarcon told Agence France-Presse. He called on the U.S. government to free the five men from prison.
The court's ruling comes less than a month after a U.N. panel ruled that the detention of the five men was arbitrary and in violation of international law. The judgment came from the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, part of the Geneva-based U.N. Commission on Human Rights.
It found the five were denied full access to evidence and to their lawyers, but a senior State Department official told The Herald at the time that the ruling was a ''politically motivated'' maneuver orchestrated by the Cuban government.
State Department officials did not comment on Tuesday's federal appeals ruling, calling it ``a judicial and law enforcement matter.''
Some in Miami found the federal appeals court's language condescending and insulting.
The court concluded it's ruling by praising the ''traditional values'' of the Cuban-American community and saying: ``We trust that any disappointment with our judgment in this case will be tempered and balanced by the recognition that we are a nation of laws in which every defendant, no matter how unpopular, must be treated fairly.''
''We are sensitive about Cuban issues, that's true, but this is insulting to exiles,'' said Manny Vazquez, an attorney for the Cuban American National Foundation. ``We are a peaceful community, and yes, we want a change in government in Cuba, but we want it in a peaceful way.''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© 2005 Herald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miami.com