Vol. 77/No. 20      May 27, 2013

Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González are Cuban revolutionaries who during the 1990s accepted assignments from the Cuban government to gather information on the activities of Cuban-American counterrevolutionary groups operating in southern Florida. These paramilitary outfits, organizing on U.S. soil with virtual impunity, have a long record of carrying out bombings, assassinations and other deadly attacks, both against targets in Cuba and supporters of the Cuban Revolution in the United States, Puerto Rico and elsewhere.

On Sept. 12, 1998, the five were arrested by the FBI. They were framed up and convicted on a variety of charges, which included acting as unregistered agents of the Cuban government and possession of false identity documents. Without a shred of evidence, three were charged with “conspiracy to gather and transmit national defense information.”

Hernández was also convicted of conspiracy to commit murder based on the pretext that he bore responsibility for the Cuban government’s 1996 shootdown of two aircraft flown by the counterrevolutionary group Brothers to the Rescue that had invaded Cuban airspace in disregard of Havana’s repeated warnings. He is serving two life terms plus 15 years. His wife Adriana Pérez is barred from entering the United States.

All but René González remain in prison. In October 2011 he was paroled with a three-year term of “supervised release.” On the pretext of his dual citizenship, González was forced to remain in the United States until May 3, when the U.S. government and Judge Joan Lenard accepted his request to return to Cuba in exchange for renouncing his U.S. citizenship.  

 
 
Related articles:
Getting to know René González, ‘an experience that changed my life’
Fellow prisoner Roddy Rodríguez recounts friendship with 1 of ‘Cuban 5’
revolutionaries framed up by US gov’t
‘A little more free, we continue to be the Five’
‘Free the Cuban Five’ Rally at the White House,
Saturday, June 1, 1 p.m.
 
 
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