RIGHTS-CUBA: Gov’t Confirms All Pardoned Prisoners Are Free

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Feb 19 1998 (IPS) - The Cuban government confirmed Thursday that close to 300 prisoners had been pardoned and released in response to a request formulated by Pope John Paul II during his January visit here.

“299 prisoners were released and sent to their homes in a space of less than 24 hours, from the afternoon of Friday the 13th to the early morning hours of Saturday the 14th,” reported Ministry of Foreign Relations spokesman Alejandro Gonzalez.

The Vatican “has been informed in detail of each of the steps taken” since Cuban authorities were provided with the Vatican’s list of names, he added.

Gonzalez’ written communique, distributed to the foreign press, confuted reports by opposition leaders that the pardoned psoners had been “gradually released in small groups.”

The pardon, the most sweeping one ever applied by the government of Fidel Castro, was approved by the Council of State on Feb. 12. The Vatican’s list of 302 names was given to Cuban authorities by Vatican Secretary of State Angelo Sodano while the Pontiff met with Castro on Jan. 22, according to the Ministry of Foreign Relations.

Sodano extended an additional request for clemency for all inmates – political as well as common prisoners – on humanitarian grounds such as advanced age and poor health.

Gonzalez reported Thursday that 75 persons on the Vatican’s list had been pardoned and released, while another 20 cases were still pending. Sixty to 70 prisoners on the list will remain behind bars.

He added that of the original list of 302 supposed inmates, around 20 names were repeated, five were “absolutely imprecise,” 106 were already free and several “were migration rather than penal cases.”

The prisoners whose cases are pending will be released after “certain requisites” have been met, the communique states.

Although the “requisites” were not specified by the ministry, the inmates in question will reportedly be released on the condition that they leave the country, the groundwork for which is apparently being laid out with the governments of several countries, such as Canada.

“When these cases are resolved, more than 90 of the 160 counter-revolutionary prisoners who were really on the Vatican’s list will have been pardoned,” according to Gonzalez.

The release of another 224 prisoners “on humanitarian grounds, independently of the reason for their imprisonment” was interpreted here as an additional gesture of goodwill by the Cuban government.

The daily ‘Granma’, the official publication of the Communist Party, wrote Feb. 13 that the decision not to release some of the people on the Vatican’s list arose from “security reasons, the dangerous character of the prisoners and the gravity of the crimes committed.”

Among those excluded from the pardon figured Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon, a Salvadoran arrested Sep. 4, 1997 who confessed to Cuba’s state television station that he had carried out the bombings in five hotels and one restaurant which shook the tourist sector and claimed the life of an Italian businessman last year.

Also excluded were seven persons found guilty of killing a police officer and three guards in a Jan. 9, 1992 attempt to hijack a boat in the Tarara naval base, east of Havana, to emigrate to the United States.

Seven Cubans, U.S. residents, who killed the driver of a car on Oct. 15, 1994 in their attempt to illegally enter the country, were also excluded from the pardon.

‘Granma’ added that “others responsible for similar violent or terrorist actsgrave acts of espionage, complicity in the economic embargo or participating in activities harmful to the Cuban economy” would also remain in prison.

The Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCHRN), a clandestine dissident group, released a partial list Thursday of 68 confirmed cases of political prisoners who were released last weekend.

The list includes nine people who had been imprisoned on charges of sabotage, two accused of revealing secrets that affected state security, one case of terrorism and one case of rebellion. According to the underground opposition group, the pardon also included people who faced charges of enemy propaganda, illegal entry and departure from the country, hijacking, desertion and forgery of documents.

The CCHRN also reported that the pardoned prisoners included Manuel Diaz Cabrera, sentenced to 30 years in prison in 1980 for sabotage and illegal entry to Cuba, Pascual Diaz Rodriguez, sentenced to 18 years in 1990, also on charges of sabotage, and Eduardo Gomez Sanchez, who was given a 20-year term in 1994 for hijacking and illegal departure.