One

of the five antiterrorist fighters unjustly
imprisoned in the United States, Hero of the Republic of Cuba, Gerardo
Hernández
Nordelo, has been subject of a new
arbitrariness by the authorities of that country, aiming at hindering
his legal process.

Last
Saturday, July 7th, the Cuban officers who had been already authorized
by the
State Department to carry out a consular
visit to Gerardo, were not able to fulfill it, under the supposed
argument that the
memorandum of the Chief of the penitentiary
center Victorville, in California, authorizing their entrance to the
prison, was
not available at the reception desk. This
fact powerfully calls the attention when, in addition to the procedures
followed
by the Cuban Interests Section in Washington
with the State Department to get the authorization for this visit,
Gerardo himself
had reconfirmed with the prison´s authorities
that everything was in order.

Additionally,
last July 9th, lawyer Martin Garbus, member of Gerardo´s defense team,
who had scheduled a legal visit to review,
together with Gerardo, the documentation related to the current
collateral process
of appeal, was not able to do it with the
same pretext that the memorandum of authorization of the chief of prison
was not
at the reception desk. Garbus could finally
visit Gerardo, thanks to the fact that his name was on the visitor´s
list; however,
and given the conditions imposed to the type
of visit he was authorized to, without a legal character, he could not
bring
in the documentation our Hero should read and
sign, and neither met with him under the appropriate conditions.
This
is not the first time events like this one occur. They have taken place
systematically
during every key moment of Gerardo´s legal
process. Just to mention a few examples: in 2010, during the
preparations of the
collateral appeal, known as Habeas Corpus,
the penitentiary authorities denied Gerardo the possibility to be
visited by his
lawyer Leonard Weinglass in two occasions,
and deliberately delayed the delivery of his legal mail, which prevented
his participation
in the reviewing. In 2003, Gerardo was
isolated in a punishment cell prior to the presentations of his direct
appeal.

The
Minister of Foreign Affairs denounces this new maneuver by US
authorities, aiming
at hindering Gerardo´s process of appeal,
depriving him from one of the few rights he has as a prisoner in the
United States.
Gerardo
has been sent to solitary confinement several times without
justification;
he´s had repeated difficulties with his
personal and legal mail; his wife, Adriana, has not been granted visa to
visit him
and they have not been able to conceive a
child. During his long and unjust imprisonment, on charges for crimes he
did not
commit and have never been proved, his rights
have been violated repeatedly.

Cuba
will not stop denouncing to the world these violations and will not
cease the
efforts to achieve the return to the Homeland
of Gerardo and his other four brothers unjustly imprisoned and retained
in the
United States for almost 14 years.

Havana July 12th, 2012

For more information on the Cuban 5:
www.freethecuban5.com
www.freethefive.org
www.thecuban5.org