"Five Heroes" From Cuba Await Their Fate

The memories are 11 years old, but still make Jose Basulto red with anger.

The Cuban exile was flying a private plane toward Cuba in February 1996 when he saw a flash and smoke, reports CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella.

Cuban fighter pilots shot down two other private planes flying alongside Basulto, killing four of his friends.

They had been on a mission with Brothers to the Rescue, a Cuban exile group, which had been flying missions into Cuban airspace to drop anti-Castro leaflets over Havana. Basulto didn't know it at the time, but his group had been infiltrated by Cuban spies.

"They are all murderers!" Jose says

In 1998, the U.S. government charged and convicted the spies - for infiltrating the Cuban exile groups, and attempting to steal U.S. military secrets.

The spies are appealing their conviction on the basis it was impossible to get a fair trial in Miami, where hating Fidel Castro is practically a pastime - and sometimes has escalated into real violence against Cuba. The Cuban government says these men were only protecting their country against exiles who posed a threat.

Militant Cuban exile groups were openly training in south Florida in the 1990's. Cuban exiles had been linked to a string of hotel bombings in Cuba.

In Cuba, the spies are known as the "Five Heroes," wrongfully imprisoned. Meanwhile, the man Havana considers responsible for the worst of terrorism in Cuba, Luis Posada Carriles, is a free man living legally in Miami. Posada is accused of bombing a Cuban airliner in 1976, killing 73 passengers. To Cubans, he's a symbol of U.S. hypocrisy in the war on terror.

"This is a festering injustice," says Leonard Weinglass, who represents one of the five, Antonio Guerrero, in the appeal to have the convictions overturned.

"I think we absolutely can win this trial in any venue in the United States outside of Miami," Weinglass says.

"We didn't attack anybody. We didn't use violence. We didn't use war," says Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban National Assembly. "We just used what is referred now in America as 'human intelligence.'"

The exile community calls the Cuban five killers. The Cuban government says the U.S. would not hesitate to shoot down any plane that invaded america's airspace.

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Click here to read Portia Siegelbaum's interview with Cuban parliament president Ricardo Alarcon about the case.

[JOMANULA]

EXECUTION TIME, COMMUNISTS STYLE FOR THE 5 CUBAN SPIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SAY NO TO SOCIALISM!!!!!!!!!!

[JOMANULA]

It is execution time for the 5 CUBAN SPIES. THESE SPIES DO NOT KNOW WHAT FIDEL CASTRO, RAUL CASTRO AND CHE GUEVARA DID IN 1959, 1960s TO SABOTAGE FREEDOM. IT IS TIME TO DEPORT ALL THE CUBAN SOCIALISTS FROM CALIFORNIA WHO ARE ENJOYING AMERICAN CAPITALISM. SAY NO TO THE NEW BREED OF HUMAN COMMUNISTS.

[curt9954]

The Cuban Five should definitely be set free and Basulto is the one who should be in jail for deliberately putting his comrads in harms way. The Cuban Five were framed by very powerful people in the Cuban Exile community who had very powerful connections with the FBI. The Five were only infiltrating organizations like bttr who posed a military threat to Cuba. Hopefully justice will be served and the Cuban Five will be set free and they can get on with their lives.

[luiszuniga]

The 5 Cuban spies were convicted not for infiltrating exiles groups, but for criminal actions. They were not 5 but 10. The Cuban regime only speaks about 5 because the other 5 cooperated with the government and acknowledged their spying activities. They infiltrated 5 US airforce bases, including Boca Chica and Homestead. One of the "five", Mr. Guerrero applied for employment at Fort Benning, 600 miles off Miami...Mr. Labanino another of the "five", set up a listening station alonside MacDill Airforce Base in Tampa, 250 miles off Miami... It would valuable if Kelly Cobiella go to the files of the trial and see the evidences. Well, just the disclosed ones, because there are some 33,000 pages sealed for national security concerns... But, anyways, he will see there how those "inocent five" set up a book bomb with C-4 explosive to kill Cuban exile Jesus Cruza Flor. He will also see how the "inocent five" were searching a place at Florida Keys to "operate in the area and be able to move persons as well as things, including arms and explosives, between our country (Cuba) and the U.S." You can find this evidence under this identification: DF-101 (E) AA (F1.wpd. The Cuban regime has mounted a huge propaganda campaign using inocent journalists who do not care to investigate first.

Luis

[cheo_malanga]

This article is tremendously biased.

First of all it implies that the Brothers to the Rescue plane were shot down for entering Cuban waters, when it is a fact that they were shot down in International waters and had not attempted to enter Cuban waters on the day they were shot down.

[lars008-2009]

NONE OF US IS FREE UNLESS ALL ARE FREE!!!

None Of Us Are Free - Lynyrd Skynyrd
http://www.lyrics007.com/Lynyrd%20Skynyrd%20Lyrics/None%20Of%20Us%20Are%20Free%20Lyrics.html

WHY IS IT NOT ONE MUSLIM COUNTRY GRANTS EQUAL RIGHTS TO NON MUSLIMS???

FASCIST NAZI TERRORISLAM SAYS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATES ISLAM LAW...

Universal Declaration of Human Rights
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

For example, in 1981, the Iranian representative to the United Nations, Said Rajaie-Khorassani, articulated the position of his country regarding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by saying that the UDHR was "a secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition", which could not be implemented by Muslims without trespassing the Islamic law.

http://www.un.org/terrorism/
http://www.un.org/terrorism/strategy-counter-terrorism.html
http://www.un.org/

But the accepted assumption in India is that most of India''s Muslims were converted to Islam through the sword. Meaning the Indians were given an option between death or adopting Islam. The third option was getting examined in Islam religion along with heavy taxes- Jeziya (poll tax) and Kharaj (property tax).
http://adaniel.tripod.com/Islam.htm

this is what fascist nazi islam calls peace....

are you ready to live under islam rule as a non muslim???

apartheid fascist nazi islamic style

Rights of Non-Muslims in an Islamic State
http://www.sullivan-county.com/id3/islamic_state.htm

[krotec54]

The Cuban government says these men were only protecting their country against exiles that posed a threat.
But the exile community calls the Cuban Five killers.
The U.S. government has charged and convicted the Cuban Five spies - for infiltrating the Cuban exile groups, and attempting to steal U.S. military secrets.
Wonder who they will swap spies for??

[dgquast]

Huh???