The Militant (logo) 
   Vol.66/No.24            June 17, 2002 
 
 
FBI, INS frame up Cuban
in Miami on ‘spy’ charges
(front page)
 
BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS  
MIAMI--FBI and Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agents stormed the house of Juan Emilio Aboy at 6:15 a.m. May 30 here. They arrested Aboy, a 41-year-old commercial diver, allegedly for spying for the government of Cuba. Apparently having no evidence to prosecute Aboy, the INS stated it will seek to deport him to Cuba.

Government authorities are trying to frame up this worker as they did with five Cuban revolutionaries convicted on various "conspiracy to commit espionage" charges last year. The big-business press is working closely with the FBI and INS on this case too, as it did with the five Cuban patriots. Within hours of his arrest supposed government evidence against Aboy has been used to find him guilty in this city’s media.

"The FBI linked Aboy to the Wasp Network, too, said Bill West, chief of the national security section of the Miami INS," reported the May 31 Miami Herald. "Agents compiled physical evidence and surveillance, ‘as well as evidence provided by some of the other defendants in the Wasp Network who implicated him,’ West said." The "Wasp Network" is the term used by government prosecutors to describe Cubans arrested in 1998, and is part of their propaganda justifying the FBI frame-up.

Five of these men--Gerardo Hernández, René González, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, and Fernando González--pleaded not guilty to the charges and were given jail sentences ranging from 15 years to double life terms in December.

The May 31 Herald article stated that in Aboy’s case, "Nobody with the INS or the FBI would discuss the purported evidence in detail." Despite this, the Herald continued to report as facts the statements by the INS and FBI.

"James Goldman, the INS assistant district director for investigations, said evidence will show that like the convicted spies, Aboy was trained by the Cuban intelligence services," the Herald said. "And like several of the convicted spies, Aboy’s ‘primary mission’ was to infiltrate the U.S. Southern Command headquarters in West Miami-Dade County, the military nerve center for the Caribbean and Latin America, Goldman said. Aboy’s intelligence handlers also directed him to try to join the Navy, but he found out he was too old, West said."

The U.S. Southern Command headquarters, for many years located in Panama during U.S. imperialism’s occupation of the Canal Zone, has worked hand-in-glove with counterrevolutionary organizations across Latin America. For example, U.S. forces trained and equipped mercenaries to invade Cuba in the early 1960s from bases in Kentucky, Louisiana, Georgia, and Florida, as well as Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Guatemala. This set the pattern for Washington’s aggression against the Cuban Revolution ever since.

The Herald implicitly stated that the U.S. government does not have a shred of evidence to prosecute Aboy on charges of spying or conspiracy to commit espionage. "But whatever else the sum of evidence might show, it’s not enough for prosecutors to win an espionage conviction, agents said," the May 31 article continued. "Aboy’s case is being handled administratively in Immigration Court."

"Immigration law requires a lesser level of evidence," Goldman told the Herald. "You need ‘X’ amount to prosecute somebody but less than ‘X’ amount to deport somebody. A case may not be strong enough to criminally prosecute you, but it’s sufficient to have you ordered deported for espionage."

Aboy, who moved from Cuba to Miami in 1996, is reportedly charged by the INS with failing to register with the U.S. government as an agent of a foreign power. He is being held at the Krome detention center in Miami.  
 
Frame-up of the five
A year ago, the frame-up of the five Cuban revolutionaries resulted in their conviction in a federal court here on a series of conspiracy charges. These included conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign power, to commit espionage, and in one case, to commit murder.

The real crime of these five men was that of carrying out a revolutionary mission to defend the sovereignty of their country, Cuba. They were defending their revolution, they explained, by gathering information on the activities of counterrevolutionary groups that operate on U.S. soil to launch violent attacks on Cuba. These groups have a long record of such activity, carried out with the full knowledge and complicity of the U.S. government.

On June 8, 2001, a jury in a federal courtroom in Miami handed down guilty verdicts against the five men on all 23 FBI-concocted charges of "spying" for the government of Cuba. Gerardo Hernández was also found guilty of the unprecedented charge of "conspiracy to commit murder" for allegedly providing Cuban authorities with the flight plans of the four Brothers to the Rescue pilots whose planes were shot down in 1996 by the Cuban air force. A number of defense witnesses offered ample evidence that these rightists repeatedly violated Cuban airspace and refused to heed warnings to head back before they were downed in the sea near Havana.

In a statement featured in the June 20 issue of the Cuban daily Granma, the government of that country condemned the June 8 convictions. The five, it said, were part of an operation to "discover and report on terrorist plans hatched against our people" in Florida by counterrevolutionary opponents of the Cuban Revolution.

The imprisoned Cubans wrote at the time in a statement to the American people, "Our tiny nation, which has heroically survived four decades of aggressions and threats to its national security, of subversion plans, sabotage, and destabilization, has every right to defend itself from its enemies who keep using U.S. territory to plan, organize, and finance terrorist actions, breaking your own laws in the process."

The arrest, trial, and sentencing of the five Cuban revolutionaries was not only an attack on the Cuban Revolution, but a travesty of justice and an attack on the rights of all working people in the United States. The violations include the unconstitutional way the FBI carried out its so-called investigation of these men, the frame-up character of their trials, and the brutal prison conditions they have been subjected to--including their post-sentencing separation in five different jails that are thousands of miles apart.

The FBI agents repeatedly broke into their homes and raided their computer files for three years before arresting them, violating Fourth Amendment protections against arbitrary search and seizure. The judge refused a defense motion to move the trial out of Miami, despite the fact that several potential jurors--especially Cuban Americans--were disqualified after stating their fear of reprisals should they cast a not-guilty vote. When they arrested the five, U.S. officials charged them with spying and trying to obtain military secrets. But the prosecution was not able to prove that any of them had actually carried out a single illegal act. That included the accusation of conspiracy to infiltrate the U.S Southern Command--a charge also leveled at Aboy. At the trial, no evidence was presented of the theft of any U.S. military secrets.

Instead, the five were convicted on conspiracy charges, used by the U.S. government when it can’t find any hard facts, despite years-long investigations.

An international campaign to demand freedom for the five is under way. The campaign includes writing letters to the imprisoned Cuban revolutionaries (see information below) and organizing house meetings and forums on campuses and elsewhere to tell the truth about their case.
 

*****

Write to the five Cuban revolutionaries

René González Sehweret, Reg. #58738-004, FCI McKean, P.O. Box 8000, Bradford, Pennsylvania 16701

Antonio Guerrero Rodríguez, Reg. #58741-004, USP Florence, P.O. Box 7500, Florence, Colorado 81226

Gerardo Hernández Nordelo (Manuel Viramontes), Reg. #58739-004, USP Lompoc, 3901 Klein Blvd., Lompoc, California 93436

Fernando González Llort (Rubén Campa), Reg. #58733-004, FCI Oxford, P.O. Box 1000, Oxford, Wisconsin 53952-0505

Ramón Labañino Salazar (Luis Medina), Reg. #58734-004, USP Beaumont, P.O. Box 26035, Beaumont, Texas 77720-6035
 
 
Related article:
Support Cubans framed by U.S.
Spouse of jailed Cuban denied visa by U.S. gov’t  
 
 
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