Press Release
New Zealand Free the Five Committee

For Immediate Release
18 June 2009

The New Zealand Free the Five Committee expresses its amazement and profound disappointment that the United States Supreme Court on Monday declined, without giving reasons, to review the case of the five Cubans languishing in US prisons for the last 10 years.

Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, René González, and Fernando González, now known as the Cuban Five, infiltrated and monitored Miami-based exile groups responsible for numerous documented terrorist acts against Cuba and Cuban interests.

Instead of arresting the Miami terrorists, in 1998 the US authorities targeted the Cuban Five, arresting and holding them in solitary confinement for 17 months preventing them from mounting their defence, while a massive, ruthless press campaign was unleashed in Miami with the participation of the prosecution, FBI officials and local authorities.

Their trial in 2001 took place amidst a resulting “perfect storm” of prejudice, in the words of one of the first appeal judges, providing the Supreme Court with ample grounds to overturn their convictions and order a new trial in a less-biased venue. The last page of the first appeal decision stated that the US Constitution demands no less.

The US Supreme Court decision this week put itself both above the US Constitution, and beyond justice. Regardless, it cannot change the fact that the "perfect storm" judicial opinion is now part of history, and the world knows that the Cuban Five were convicted under conditions that even US federal judges recognise as being fundamentally unfair.

The refusal to review the case also underscores the political nature of the entire affair, from the FBI demanding a crackdown on the Cubans in the US Senate in 1998, to a statement in the Miami press in 2001 by rightwing Cuban Mafioso José Basulto that it was “definitely a political decision by the Clinton administration.”

What was fundamentally judged was not the actions of the five Cubans, but the right of Cuba to defend itself against the terrorism unleashed against it from southern Florida.

The case now sits unequivocally in the political realm, with a collateral appeal by way of habeas corpus on constitutional grounds, or presidential action, the only remaining options.

Historical experience demonstrates that independent of any system, regardless of how corrupt or incompetent it might be, there are always honourable people. With this case, Barack Obama has the chance to show he is one of them.

The New Zealand Fee the Five Committee demands an end to this cruel and inhumane judicial and political farce, and the immediate release of Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, René González, and Fernando González.

ENDS

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