Fidel Castro condemns mistreatment of Cuban prisoner in US

CUBA: The mistreatment dealt out to Gerardo Hernandez, one of the five Cuban antiterrorists incarcerated in high security prisons in the U.S., amounts to torture, charged the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro.

In a gathering with some 100 young Cubans, Fidel Castro said Hernandez is confined with another inmate to “the hole,” a cell of just 2 x 1 meters; moreover, he is a man who urgently needs medical care for a possible bacterial infection.

“There’s no reason whatsoever for this confinement,” the Cuban leader emphasized. “Did he do anything? No, nothing, and this punishment was not decided by prison authorities. Four FBI officers met and made a decision. This is torture!” he said.

Gerardo Hernandez was arrested together with Rene Gonzalez, Fernando Gonzalez, Ramon Laba¤ino and Antonio Guerrero, and after a biased Miami, all five were given harsh prison sentences. The Cuban Five, as they are internationally known, have been in separate, high-security prisons for 12 years.

A U.N. legal panel called their incarceration unjust and arbitrary and demanded their release, as have hundreds of world-renowned individuals, including Nobel Prize winners.

The five men have been suffering for 12 years, Fidel Castro emphasized, adding, “Doesn’t their suffering count for anything? Doesn’t it matter?”

He recalled that on July 26, he talked with Gerardo’s wife, Adriana Perez O’Connor, and said he did not realize at the time that Gerardo was in the hole.

“This is a person who needs medical attention,” exclaimed the Cuban leader, who insisted that “there’s no reason whatsoever for this confinement.”

Havana, Prensa Latina