BRASILIA, August 18 (PL).— Efforts to free the five Cuban heroes imprisoned in the United States acquired fresh impetus today with support from the National Commission on Human Rights (CNDH) of the Brazilian Order of Attorneys (OAB).

That organization promised to go before the OAB’s Federal Council to bring an international lawsuit demanding the release of Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, Antonio Guerrero Rodríguez, Fernando González Llort, Ramón Labañino Salazar and René González Schwerert.

After examining the case, the CNDH decided to request that OAB national president Roberto Busato coordinate with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Itamaraty) for support from the Brazilian government for a recommendation made by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions.

That UN group ruled as illegal the arrests of the five Cubans, who were dedicated to alerting their country to terrorist activities against it being plotted by mafia organizations in the United States.

That group said that those sentences imposed on the antiterrorist fighters violate Paragraph 14 of the United Nations International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, to which the United States is a signatory.

In face of that situation, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions determined that U.S. authorities should take steps to free the five Cubans, which did not occur.

In a parallel manner, this case is being studied by the national OAB at the request of Pedro Núñez Mosquera, the Cuban ambassador in Brazil, and Mirta Rodríguez Pérez, mother of Antonio Rodríguez, one of the Five.

The diplomat and Mirta met on June 19 with Aristóteles Atheniense, vice president of the OAB, who decided to bring the matter to the attention of the organization’s International Relations Commission, which after studying the case asked for it to be considered by the CNDH.

The CNDH met two days ago with leaders of 10 OAB commissions in Teresina, in the Brazilian state of Piauí, and was led by the commission’s president, Edisio Simoes Souto.

During the meeting, the secretary Joelson Dias described the adverse conditions of bias under which the Cuban patriots were tried and sentenced, and the injustices committed against them and their families.