Miami Five’s trial: a gigantic apparatus of complicity and corruption

                   BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD (Special for Granma International)

                   WHAT five Cubans did in Miami — risking their lives to carry out
                   heroic work, to counteract criminal terrorist plans – was of no
                   interest to Judge Joan Lenard, even though those plans were already
                   on record within the U.S. government. On the contrary, what
                   interested her was following the orders of a judicial apparatus that
                   serves the anti-Cuba camarilla.

                   Throughout the trial of the five patriots, she constantly tried to point
                   the proceedings toward the "evidence" falsified by the FBI "special
                   agent" Héctor Pesquera, with the sole purpose of fabricating a "spy
                   scandal" that could achieve the sinister objectives of the Cuban
                   American National Foundation (CANF).

                   The prosecution avidly searched for "evidence" linking one of the
                   accused to the February 24, 1996 downing of two Brothers to the
                   Rescue light aircraft, and linking another defendant to possession
                   of allegedly secret military information.

                   Regarding the first theme, at the behest of Pesquera – representing
                   the FBI – the public prosecutor basically supported Brothers to the
                   Rescue leader José Basulto’s allegations.

                   A look into Basulto’s terrorist past makes clear the kind of "evidence"
                   presented.

                   Basulto emigrated to the United States immediately after the
                   overthrow of dictator Fulgencio Batista and the triumph of the Cuban
                   Revolution. Once in Miami, he and his friend Félix Rodríguez joined
                   Brigade 2506, organized by the CIA to invade Cuba, under the
                   command of Batista supporters. Both infiltrated Cuba before the
                   failed operation.

                   On his return to Miami, Basulto and Rodríguez joined in other violent
                   operations directed at overthrowing the Cuban Revolution.

                   On August 24, 1962, Basulto aimed a 22mm cannon from a boat
                   some 200 meters off the coast of Havana’s Miramar neighborhood,
                   facing a hotel supposedly frequented by Fidel Castro.

                   At 11:30 a.m., Basulto fired, hitting a building and terrorizing the
                   hotel’s guests. (Fidel was not there.)

                   On May 20, 1963, Basulto and 50 other Bay of Pigs veterans joined
                   the CIA’s Operation 40 and received training in Fort Bragg, North
                   Carolina, and Fort Benning, Georgia.

                   The experienced terrorist collaborated with Argentina’s fascist military
                   regime, famed for murdering more than 30,000 people opposed to
                   the regime. Héctor Pesquera, of course, "knew nothing" about this.

                   Basulto confessed his terrorist adventures in an interview with The
                   Washington Post, published on May 20, 1997.

                   During the trial, officials from the Federal Aviation Administration
                   (FAA) confirmed that they had warned Basulto and his organization
                   SEVEN times concerning the serious danger of flights he had
                   organized over Havana.

                   Sadly, the FAA took away his commercial pilot’s license only AFTER
                   the serious incident.

                   The testimony of Basulto’s buddy Arnaldo Iglesias, who was aboard
                   the light aircraft with him at the moment the dramatic event
                   occurred, is also revealing. He confessed that in 1995, he and
                   Basulto had experimented with homemade bombs made out of
                   cartridge-filled PVC tubes; these were launched from their aircraft
                   over the Opa-Locka airport zone.

                   He likewise admitted that Brothers to the Rescue had published a
                   document announcing that the organization was going to provoke
                   "confrontations with the Cuban government."

                   Iglesias hastily stated that in spite of all this, Brothers to the Rescue
                   was a "peaceful" organization.

                   The theme of a "Cuban agent’s complicity" in the downing of
                   Basulto’s aircraft was presented as if Brothers to the Rescue had not
                   been warned about the possible consequences if those flights, when
                   in fact such warnings had been issued for quite a long time.
                   Furthermore, Cuban authorities did not need anyone in Miami to
                   inform them about the flights, for at the same time the planes
                   appeared on Cuban radar that same information was being reported
                   by Miami’s own controllers.

                   ALLEGATIONS OF SPYING REFUTED

                   Regarding the subject of espionage – or rather access to military
                   secrets – the prosecution’s allegations were completely refuted. No
                   evidence or testimony demonstrated that the Five had obtained or
                   were seeking information to do harm to the United States.

                   It’s interesting to see how at the very moment when the "suspects"
                   were arrested, a strong disinformation campaign had already been
                   set into motion, to prepare the public and also potential jurors for a
                   trial in which the accused would be considered guilty from the start.

                   Let’s look at a September 15, 1998 article from The Washington
                   Post. Journalist Sue Ann Pressley was already portraying the case as
                   a national tragedy. She describes how the arrests "ended the most
                   extensive espionage effort of Cuban agents" in her nation. How
                   absurd! This case has been the FIRST and ONLY one in the complete
                   39-year history of difficult relations between Cuba and the United
                   States.

                   According to the journalist, when U.S. Federal Prosecutor Thomas E.
                   Scott announced the case, he declared that those arrested were
                   trying "to strike at the very heart of the U.S. security system."

                   But the evidence presented at the trial did not in any way
                   substantiate this extremely misleading statement.

                   The article also stated that the objective of the "group of clandestine
                   agents" was, "among other things," to infiltrate several "anti-Castro
                   organizations," including Brothers to the Rescue. But the author
                   added: "Officials did not link the espionage charges to the February
                   1996 incident in which two small private planes belonging to Brothers
                   to the Rescue were shot down."

                   The strangest thing is that on the very same day, Manny García,
                   Carol Rosenberg and Cynthia Corzo co-authored another article in
                   The Miami Herald that contradicted the one printed in The Post.
                   These three quoted federal authorities as saying that the individuals
                   arrested did not steal secrets.

                   Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon told Herald reporters: "One of
                   them worked on a military base, obviously. But here are no
                   indications that they had access to classified information or access to
                   sensitive areas."

                   Even more interestingly, an FBI spokesman in Miami, Mike Fabregas
                   — apparently better informed than his boss, Pesquera — told The
                   Miami Herald that none of the Five were successful. At the same
                   time in Washington, another spokesperson described the group as
                   being "extremely sophisticated," ranking them 8.5 on a scale of 10.

                   The Five’s trial, some two and a half years later, ridiculed the
                   prosecutor’s statements.

                   It was rather funny to note that among the "evidence" was a blue
                   cardboard box with "War Planes" written on it and containing scores
                   of full-color cards depicting military aircraft, along with a receipt for
                   $6.88 USD from a well-known store catering to collectors of trading
                   cards.

                   Nor was the "dangerousness" of the "spies" proven by witnesses. In
                   fact, the reverse shown! Various top-ranking military officers denied
                   that the Five had been spying: General James R. Clapper, former
                   head of the Defense Department’s intelligence agency; General
                   Charles Wilheim, former chief of the Southern Command; General
                   Edward Atkeson, who was the Army’s deputy chief of staff for
                   intelligence; Admiral Eugene Carroll, former deputy head of Naval
                   Operations; and Col. George Buckner, former official of the U.S. Air
                   Defense Command System. All their testimonies rejected the
                   possibility that the Five had been close to any strategically valuable
                   information.

                   General Carroll, a well-known expert in Cuba’s military capacity, even
                   went so far as to say that much more information than that
                   mentioned by the prosecution could be found by simply reading
                   specialized magazines such as Jane’s Defense Weekly.

                   ANOMALIES WITHIN ANOMALIES

                   But the most absurd thing is that the 240 sealed enveloped allegedly
                   containing "evidence" continue — months after the end of the trial —
                   to be unavailable to the defense, which was the case DURING the
                   trial, based on the law’s requirements concerning classified
                   information.

                   Worse still, the appeal hearing in Atlanta is currently being hindered by
                   this extreme abuse of federal law, in order to prevent use of the
                   evidence. This cynically and intentionally violates the most basic
                   rights of the five patriots.

                   At the end of the trial — in a way not just unusual but equally
                   suspicious — the jury announced the exact day and time that they
                   would give their verdict. Contrary to what normally happens, they
                   didn’t ask for any points to be clarified, nor did they voice any doubts
                   — despite the case’s immense complexity, the five-month-long trial,
                   documents running into tens of thousands of pages, and the dozens
                   of charges brought against the five defendants. And the jury found
                   the five men guilty on ALL the charges, without exception.

                   Judge Lenard proceeded in the same way, following a mysterious
                   script.

                   She didn’t accept ANY of the extenuating circumstances suggested
                   by the defense and accepted the contentions of aggravated charges
                   made by the prosecution.

                   The vengeful and irrational character of the heavy sentences is
                   evident: Gerardo was condemned to two life sentences plus 15
                   years in prison; Ramón to life plus 18 years; Antonio’s sentence was
                   life with an additional 10 years, Fernando received 19 years; and
                   René 15.

                   It is particularly absurd and totally inconsistent with whatever
                   jurisprudence that Gerardo Hernández should receive a sentence for
                   premeditated murder, without any evidence or witnesses against
                   him, nor any circumstantial proof that personally links him to that
                   alleged crime.

                   This proves, once again, that trial clearly supported anti-Cuba
                   terrorist groups operating in Miami and the camarilla that is trying to
                   legitimize its activities.