"We maintain that these men were working against terrorism. Since the beginning, this was clearly a political case." Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba’s National Assembly, talks with NBC News’ Mary Murray about the ongoing legal dispute over the so-called “Cuban Five” – five Cubans convicted in the U.S. in 2001 for serving as unregistered agents of a foreign country.
Today, August 2nd, 2006, the President of the Cuban National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcón, and Leonard Weinglass, Attorney for the Cuban Five talked about the current situation of the Five in TV News Program "Democracy Now". Both mentioned that on next August 9th will be one year after the Court of Appeals revoked the convictions of those people, but they remain in prison.
In an exclusive interview with Prensa Latina news agency, Alarcón comments about a connection with the case of the terrorists pardoned in Panama that, oddly enough, the US mainstream media has ignored: the so-called “Miami Five” case."The connection is clear: terrorism. Because the essence of the case of the Five, the moral viewpoint, has to do with law and Cuba’s necessity to defend itself from the terrorist actions that are organized and carried out from US territory", explained Alarcon.
"Although there is confidence and assurance in all the arguments presented with the truth clearly on our side, we cannot forget that the case of the Five was a political one from the outset. The very request to reconsider this ruling by the panel on August 9, 2005, confirms this." An interview with Granma during a meeting in Havana with a group from the Hispanic National Bar Association.
“They’ve all served extremely long sentences,” say the lawyers, “and we don’t even think the government believes they should be tried again. They clearly did not act in a criminal way, and when someone has suffered as much as they have, it’s best to just release them.” Mike Fuller, specially for Prensa Latina interviewed Leonard Weinglaas and Richard Klugh, lawyers of the Cuban Five.
