Acosta claimed the “decision in this case is contrary to the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States and of the Eleventh Circuit.” The Department of Justice waited until the last moment before a September 29 deadline to make its appeal, after having received a 30-day extension.

A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit overturned the conviction of the Cuban Five in August and ordered a new trial. The U.S. attorney is demanding that the full, 12-judge court review that ruling and reverse it. Such reviews are rare, according to lawyers for the five, and especially unlikely given the unanimity of the conclusions of the three-judge panel and the extent of documentation their ruling was based on.

The three judges ruled that the defendants did not receive a fair trial in Miami. In upholding their appeal, the panel found that “pervasive community prejudice” against the Cuban government created an atmosphere where they were “unable to obtain a fair and impartial trial.”

Andrés Gómez, director of Areíto Digital, explained the new situation to a group of supporters of the five Cuban revolutionaries who gathered in the offices of Radio Miami a few days after the government requested that the 11th Circuit review its earlier ruling. “The original decision was very solid,” Gómez said. “It simply called for a change of venue. If the 11th Circuit Court rejects the U.S. attorney’s appeal and the ruling stands, the government will have to decide if it wants to file new charges and retry the five. But remember, if the government wanted to go to a new trial, they would not have appealed the ruling.

“If the full court accepts the government’s appeal, they will issue a whole new decision, and that could take a long time, during which our heroes will stay in jail,” said Gómez.

The five—Fernando González, René González, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernández, and Ramón Labañino—are serving from 15 years to a double life term. They were arrested in 1998 and convicted in a June 2001 frame-up trial in Miami of conspiracy to commit espionage, to act as unregistered foreign agents, and—in the case of Hernández—to commit murder. The five had been gathering information on ultrarightist Cuban-American groups that have organized violent attacks on Cuba from U.S. territory with Washington’s complicity. These groups were funded and in some cases created by the U.S. government.

Gómez called for a picket line outside the immigration and customs building on 79th St. and Biscayne Blvd. in Miami, for October 15 to demand “Free the Five! Not One Day Longer!”  
 
 
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