Center for International Policy

August 20, 2007

Actions of Cuban Five Anti Terrorist Fighters Justified

Havana, Aug 20 (Prensa Latina) The director of the Cuba Program at the Center for International Policy, Wayne Smith, Monday considered justified the actions carried out by the five Cubans imprisoned in the United States to avoid terrorist attacks against their country.

Smith considered reasonable the efforts of those Cubans to monitor and avoid terrorist attack plans and actions of counter revolutionary groups from the US territory to defeat the Caribbean country's government.

Rene Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino and Fernando Gonzalez were arrested in 1998 and were condemned to long sentences ranging from life imprisonment to 15 years in jail, and taken into punishment cells.

Speaking about the performance of his country's authorities in this case, the former chief of the US Interest Section in Havana and academician told Cuban Trabajadores daily that the five's defense lawyers are doing a good job, and called dishonest the prosecutors who tried the Cuban antiterrorist fighters.

Smith termed as double standard the policy of George W Bush's administration, which pardons, protects, and calls peace fighters the terrorists of Cuban origin Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles.