Cuban Agents to Get New TrialHello? "Community predjudice?" What the living hell kind of a reason is that for tossing out the convictions of five of Castro's spies? Of course there's community prejudice against Castro in Miami and just about everywhere else in the country except moonbat alley. For chirssakes the man's a freakin' murdering dictator who throws his critics into jails for 20 years at a clip. "Community predjudice?" SO WHAT?
MIAMI (AP) -- A federal appeals court threw out the convictions and life sentences of five accused Cuban spies Tuesday, ruling that they did not receive a fair trial because of community prejudice and extensive publicity.
A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ordered a new trial after agreeing with the arguments of defense attorneys about the 2001 convictions. None of the jurors was Cuban, but the defense argued that prejudice against Fidel Castro and his communist government runs high in Miami.
Also overturned was the murder conspiracy conviction of ringleader Gerardo Hernandez. He was also convicted for his role in the deaths of four Cuban exiles shot down by Cuban MiGs in international airspace in 1996, an event that sparked widespread condemnation.Beautiful. Murders and spies go free and Castro laughs his ass off.
All five Cubans were convicted in June 2001 of serving as unregistered agents of a foreign government. Evidence showed that two of them targeted U.S. military installations from Key West to Tampa and the ring spied on Cuban exiles....
The five were the only ones who went to trial after they were indicted in 1998 as part of the 14-member Wasp Network.
Cuba has made the five a cause celebre, featuring them on a Web site and issuing a CD of one spy's jailhouse poetry set to music. Free the Five committees were set up in several countries.
What a f*cked up mess.
UPDATE:
You can read the decision here.
FURTHER UPDATE:
Val Prieto's got lots more at Babalu blog.
Check out the comments.
3 comments:
I spent about 45 seconds reading the 94 page opinion. I think I got it.
No Cubans can be tried for crimes in southern Florida.
Did you read the self serving cover ass disclaimer at the end of the opinion? Priceless.
I thought Birch was supposed be a pretty good judge?
more at www.sdfla.blogspot.com
I'm telling you, KJ, this is nuts.
It's like saying the Timothy McVeigh couldn't get a fair trial in the USA because he's an American...and thus people hated his damnable keister.
What do they want to do? Try the thing in Amsterdam?
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