Ramon Labañino was born in Havana in 1963 and was schooled in economics at the University of Havana, where he graduated with honors.
Fernando Gonzalez, who was born in 1963 in Havana, earned a degree in international political relations with high honors. He was active in theater and participated in international cultural festivals. From 1987 to 1989 he was part of the Cuban forces supporting Angola against the South African apartheid regime.
Rene Gonzalez was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1963. Their family returned to Cuba in 1963. He served in Angola from 1977 to 1979. He studied aviation after that and graduated as a pilot and flight instructor in 1982.
The five Cubans had been sent to Miami, Florida in the 1990s on a mission to infiltrate organizations conducting terrorist activities against Cuba, particularly Brothers to the Rescue, and relay information about their activities to the Cuban government.
On June 16-17, 1998, the Cuban government and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) met in Havana. The Cuban government presented to the FBI the results of its investigations into the activities of Miami-based anti-Cuba groups like Commandos F4, Coalition of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), Alpha 66, Omega 7, and Brothers to the Rescue – all based in Miami. These included documents, photographs and surveillance reports showing that these groups were planning to stage a number of new “terrorist” attacks against Cuba. The Cuban government invited two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officials to the meeting of June 16-17, 1998 to show them documents on the “dangerous” activities of some 40 people involved in the attacks on Cuba. These persons, the Cuban government told the FBI officials, live in Florida.
The FBI promised to take action on the results of Cuba’s investigations, including the surveillance reports, which had been prepared by Hernandez, Guerrero, Labañino, and the two Gonzalezes.
The five, however, were arrested on Sept. 12, 1998, and charged with espionage, conspiracy to commit murder, and other crimes. For 17 months they were kept in solitary confinement. Their trial began in November 2000. The US government insisted on their being tried in Miami, in spite of several requests for a transfer of venue citing the “impossibility of a fair trial” in the said city. After a six-month trial involving 24,000 pages of documents and 119 pages of testimonies, the five were convicted and sentenced to four life terms and 75 years in prison.
On Aug. 9, 2005, the Cuban Five won a victory on appeal when a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a new trial outside of Miami. However, on Oct. 31 that same year, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals conducted an en banc hearing and reversed the earlier decision of the three-judge panel, voting 10-2 and denying the Cuban Five’s petition for a new trial. Last June 15, the US Supreme Court refused to review their case. The wives and children of the Cuban Five have repeatedly been denied US visas, preventing them from visiting the five in jail.
“A worldwide campaign seeking justice for these young men is gathering strength and is attacking the wall of silence maintained by the world’s mass media,” Jimenez said. “These efforts must be sustained, since world opinion offers almost the only prospect of securing their return home. The pressure must be kept up. The Cuban Five must be freed immediately.”
