News from Cuba as of
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Cuba complains about US treatment of ailing jailed spy
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| Published on Friday, July 30, 2010 | Email To Friend Print Version
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HAVANA, Cuba (AFP) -- A Cuban who has been in prison in the United States since 1998 on espionage charges is in poor health, a top Cuban official has said, warning that Washington would held responsible for his condition.
"The health of Gerardo (Hernandez) is in danger and that situation is entirely the responsibility of the government of the United States," Ricardo Alarcon, the president of Cuba's National Assembly, said Wednesday.
Hernandez, 45, was one of five Cubans arrested in 1998 on charges of spying in the United States in a case that has long been a sore point between Havana and Washington.
Employed at a US naval air station in Florida, they were accused of passing information to Havana that led to the shoot-down by Cuba of a private plane used by Miami-based exiles to scout the waters off Cuba for boat people.
Hernandez, who was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences plus 15 years, suffers from high blood pressure and has a bacterial infection and is currently in solitary confinement at a prison in Victorville, California, Cuban television said.
Alarcon said the US government has been aware since April that Hernandez was ailing but had only permitted him to be examined by doctors on July 20.
He said Hernandez's situation is serious because he was being held "under punishment conditions" in a small, unventilated cell with only a small opening high up on a wall.
"We have complained to the State Department and have had no response," Alarcon said, adding that Hernandez had been deprived of contact with his lawyers just as they are engaged in appealing his case.
Hernandez and the other prisoners -- Rene Gonzalez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando Gonzalez -- are considered "anti-terrorist heroes" in Cuba.
The Cuban government has acknowledged they were agents but said their mission was to spy on anti-Castro Cubans in Miami, not on the United States.
On Monday, at a meeting with intellectuals and artists, former president Fidel Castro predicted the five would be freed "long before the end of the year," but gave no details.
A US appeals court last year confirmed Hernandez's sentence but reduced those given to three others in the group. | | | | Reads : 558 | | | |
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