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Appeals
Court notified of obstacles to Five’s defense
 ON
March 26, Leonard Weinglass, Antonio Guerrero’s
lawyer filed a motion before the Atlanta Appeals
Court explaining the obstacles placed in his way as
a defense attorney to maintain contact with his
client, who has been in solitary confinement (the
hole) since March 3, according to the web page http://www.antiterroristas.cu
.
As a
responsible lawyer, he is unable to present the
appeal documents without first reviewing them with
his client, Weinglass affirms, detailing Antonio’s
harsh conditions, not imposed because he has
committed an indiscipline or a crime (he has been a
model prisoner and teacher in the penitentiary), but
supposedly for reasons of national security.
In his
motion, Weinglass likewise relates the terrible
conditions of Gerardo Hernández, another of the
five Cubans in isolation, whom he was able to visit
in Lompoc, California, once again without any
guarantees for his labors as a lawyer.
Weinglass
states that he had visited Antonio Guerrero,
incarcerated in Florence, Colorado, to introduce
himself and generally familiarize himself with the
case, and that in the following months, during which
various motions were in litigation in the District
Court — including one for a retrial — he was in
correspondence with his client.
He was
due to visit him again on March 19 to review the
draft of the appeal being prepared, but on March 3
special administrative measures were imposed on
Tony, who was taken from his cell and placed in
segregation. Under those conditions he was denied
access to his legal documents and correspondence, as
well as the possibility of making or receiving phone
calls or correspondence, including from his lawyer.
After informing that both he and his associate were
finally allowed to meet with Antonio Guerrero on the
established date, Weinglass argues that the visit
took place under the same conditions, meaning his
total and continued isolation for reasons of
national security that could not be revealed.
He
adds that the prison authorities informed him that
the legal visit would take place under the strictest
measures. "Although we were with him for six
hours," he says, "the objectives of the
meeting could not be fulfilled after Mr.
Guerrero’s 16-day isolation, separated from his
notes on the trial and his correspondence. The main
objective of the meeting was to review a 35-page
letter, handwritten by my client, posing a series of
questions and responses that, in part, were central
to the appeal. Moreover, his living conditions,
including the screams of mentally disturbed
prisoners in the punishment block, had deprived him
of proper sleep and rest during the two previous
weeks, undermining his ability to concentrate on our
work."
Up
until the date of the motion on Wednesday, Tony was
still in isolation and under special restrictions,
according to Weinglass, who emphasizes the
impossibility of useful lawyer/client communication
for close to one month, for which reason he is
unable to file, in a responsible manner, the
documents for the appeal without previously going
through them with his client.
The
U.S. lawyer also refers to his appeal-related visit
to Lompoc, California where Gerardo Hernández,
charged together with Guerrero for conspiring to
commit espionage, is incarcerated, and who has also
been subjected since February 28, 2003 to special
administrative measures, as is the case with the
remainder of the five Cubans appealing their
sentences.
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--
Condemnation
of further violations against Gerardo
RICARDO Alarcón,
president of the National Assembly of People’s Power,
yesterday condemned the worsening – without due cause or
justification – of human rights violations against the five
Cuban patriots currently imprisoned in the United States, ...
-- To
conceal the bad faith of the federal prosecution and Miami judge
OBSTRUCTING the
work of the defense in relation to the appeals process at the
Atlanta 11th Circuit Court, scheduled to begin on April 7;
building a wall of silence to balance a growing international
solidarity movement; and covering up the federal prosecutor and
the Miami judge’s unjustifiable errors are all motives for the
Five’s current solitary confinement.
-- Cuban
Five Are Placed in Solitary Confinement Without Explanation
March 7th, 2003
The newly re-elected President of the Cuban National Assembly,
Ricardo Alarcón, has condemned further abuses against the five
Cuban political prisoners in the United States.
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