Friday, August 11, 2006

by Jim Loney

MIAMI, USA (Reuters): A US appeals court has upheld the convictions of five Cuban men for spying on behalf of Fidel Castro's government, ruling a lower court was right not to move their trial out of Miami despite claims of a biased jury pool.

The men, known as the "Cuban Five," were found guilty in 2001 of being part of a ring that infiltrated U.S. military bases and Cuban exile groups and fed information to Havana.

In a 10-2 decision issued on Wednesday, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta said greater Miami, a bastion of Cuban exiles opposed to Castro's Communist government, is a "widely diverse, multiracial community of more than two million people."

"Nothing in the trial record suggests that 12 fair and impartial jurors could not be assembled by the trial judge to try the defendants," the majority opinion said.

In Havana, the ruling Communist Party blasted the ruling in its official Granma newspaper, saying the trial had been "loaded with hatred and vengeance against the Cuban nation."

The United States and Cuba are ideological foes and severed diplomatic relations in 1960, a year after Castro's revolution. The veteran Cuban leader handed power to his brother Raul last week as he underwent stomach surgery.

Cuba says the defendants were not spying on the United States, but keeping an eye on extremist exile groups, which Havana accuses of financing bombings in Cuba in 1997.

Castro said the ring was uncovered after Cuba warned U.S. authorities about a plan by militant exiles to blow up commercial airplanes between Central America and Cuba.

Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon told The New Yorker magazine in April that Cuba had also warned Washington that Miami-based exile group Brothers to the Rescue was going to fly over Havana dropping leaflets.

The flights were not stopped and two of the planes run by Brothers to the Rescue were shot down by Cuban fighters. One of the Cuban agents was found guilty of providing information that led to the shoot down.

Three of the men were sentenced to life in prison on espionage charges and the others to 15- and 19-year terms.

Last year, a three-judge panel from the Atlanta court overturned the convictions and said intense publicity and "pervasive prejudice" against Castro had prevented them from getting a fair trial in Miami.

Prosecutors challenged the panel's ruling, leading to Wednesday's judgment.

Two of the 12 judges dissented, saying the trial venue should have been changed.

"We are a nation of laws in which every defendant, no matter how unpopular, must be treated fairly -- a concept many consider alien to the current Cuba regime," they wrote.

Defense lawyers said they were considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, nine issues remained on appeal, including claims of prosecutorial misconduct.

"This decision is not the end of the case, far from it," said Leonard Weinglass, one of the attorneys.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican congresswoman from south Florida, said the case sent a message "to the totalitarian regime of Castro that our government will prosecute and imprison any individual involved in espionage against the United States and those who threaten our national security."

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