Taking into account that in light of U.S. Constitutional Law and international law standards the said process has overlooked basic legal safeguards such as the right to proper counsel, hindered in this case by keeping the accused in solitary confinement throughout the 17 months previous to their trial to prevent them from freely communicating with their defense attorneys, the inadequate implementation of national security laws to stop both the accused and their defense attorneys from having access to the existing evidence, and the holding of this trial in Miami, where there exists a hostile atmosphere as a result of strong political influences on the community by leaders of the very terrorist organizations the Cuban Five had under surveillance.
These violations, together with the harsh prison sentences dictated against the Cuban Five, which the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of the United Nations Human Rights Commission labeled as disproportionate in its conclusions issued on May 27, 2005, are sufficiently serious that their arrest becomes an illegal and arbitrary decision.
Taking into account as well that the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta responded to the appeal filed by the Cuban Five with an annulment of the sentences passed in court and called for a new trial, sustaining in its judgment dated August 9, 2005 that the process had taken place under a “perfect storm” fueled by negative publicity campaigns against the defendants before and during the trial in a strongly prejudiced venue and through repeated misconduct practices by the prosecutors, mostly intent on getting a guilty verdict rather than serving justice.
Therefore, this meeting ratifies the IADL’s denunciation of the manifest violations committed along this process by agreeing to circulate all relevant information about this process among our members with a view to further disseminating this case in jurist and other social organizations, make it known in every international forum we attend and develop parallel judicial and any other possible action at international level so that proper, necessary justice be achieved regarding the case of the Cuban Five.
Given in the City of Havana on April 12, 2006