- Reuters:
- Penultimos Dias: Etecsa has dropped the cell phone activation fee from 60 convertible pesos to 40.
- Attorneys for the “Cuban Five” are petitioning for the case to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court; their petition is here and the Justice Department’s argument in opposition is here (pdf).
- Bored with
6 comments:
Phil,
You fail to point out the story in today's Herald about the lack of preparations for the Cuban Communist Party congress. It seems to point to a certain political stalemate in Cuba. Very odd but no end in sight!
Vecino de NF
The Justice Department position on the Cuban five is an embarassment. The same Justice Department just struck a deal with a REAL ACTUAL spy, who dealt in REAL ACTUAL classified material harmful to REAL ACTUAL US national security concerns. That spy (Ben-Ami Kadish) was given a softy plea deal and is a free man today, after paying a small fine. His charges were downgraded from very serious spying charges (that he admits he was guilty of) to the same crime as 4/5 Cubans - failing to register as an agent. Except the Cubans got 25 years for that. The hypocrisy could not be thicker. Does anyone care?
The Justice brief contains a point of "fact" that I find astonishing. It contends that that the murder charge against Hernandez for the BTTR shootdown was based on the fact that he KNEW the shootdown would occur over international waters. This is critical because it would not be murder if the shootdown occured over Cuban waters. How do they prove this? They argue that the PREVIOUS leafletting flight (on January 9, 1996) did not enter Cuban waters, and therfore Hernandez must have known the intent was to shoot them down no matter what. The brief says:
The evidence showed, however, that the operation was a direct response to the leaflet drops BTTR executed a month before the shootdown. Pet. App. 4a, 48a. Viewed in the light most favorable to the government, the evidence showed that none of the BTTR planes entered Cuban airspace during those drops. Id. at 75a-76a. The jury could therefore infer that, because BTTR’s most recent “provocations” were committed in international airspace, the planned confrontation was also to occur in international airspace.First, off, BTTR entered Cuban airspace at least 25 times in the past. Whether they did or did not January 6 (when leaflets ended up in Havana) is still up in the air. But you can not make a narrow argument that ignores the 25 previous incursions and concludes only the January 6 previous incursion was pertinent.
Nevermind the Cuban radar shots showing the planes well within the Cuban airspace on fateful day. Nevermind that even the accepted radar (from the Majesty of the Seas ship) shows at least one BTTR plane entering Cuban airspace on that day. Nevermind the 25 previous incursions. Hernandez is guilty of murder because he should have known that Cuba's intention was to shoot down planes in international waters. Legal absurdity.
FREE THE FIVE!
The appeal to the US Supreme Court is weak (any appeal that begins its argument with references to amicus briefs is a joke! Remember you first argue the facts, then you argue the law, and last you argue sentiment!). Any reduction in the sentences of the Wasp ring agents will have to wait for xecutive action not judicial means. It would be surprising if the Supreme Court even takes up the case.
Vecino de NF
sorry, leftside, but my resevoir of sympathy is used up on behalf of democracy and human rights activists unjustly imprisoned in the Cuban gulag -- not by a gang of regime intelligence agents illegally operating in the US.
Anon 4:20, I guess you aren't concerned with those quaint notions like "equal justice under the law" or "the law is blind?" It does not concern you that a real (Israeli) spy collecting US national security secrets was let off with a slap on the wrist, and yet 4 Cubans who were only protecting their homeland using open sources (nothing classified, nothing against the US) got 25 years?
I won't go into the fact that the great majority of those being called "political prisoners" inside Cuba could also be considered "foreign agents" under US Law.
omg, where's the sarcasm dude when we need him?
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