Dr. Parnell Campbell, lawyer and chairman of the Committee of Solidarity with the Five  in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, dedicated his popular 30 minute- weekly TV show "The law and you" to tackle the violations committed against our Five Heroes imprisoned in the United States.

Using a technical vocabulary of legal terms, but accessible to the Vincentian audience, Campbell excellently summarized the case since the Five were arrested up to date.

Campbell explained about  the charges  and sentences imposed on each one of the five Cubans, which he labeled as unjust and irrational. He especially referred to Gerardo Hernandez’s case , whose sentence- two life sentences and 15 years- was not reduced as in other cases, while he had been rejected all appeals.

The Vincentian lawyer also raised the referred to Washington´s repeated denial of entry visas to the wives of Gerardo and Rene, and he explained what this action means in terms of human rights violations and for the suffering of the prisoners and their relatives.

During the last minutes of the TV show, the host referred to the 1976  bombing in mid air of a Cubana jetliner off the coasts of Barbados that killed all 73 P.O.B.. This brutal case was directly connected to confessed terrorist Posada Carriles and the violent actions organized in US territory against Cuba; these were the reasons for the Cuban Five to have infiltrated Florida-based ultra-right organizations in order to prevent  such criminal activities.

Parnell Campbell recalled that Cuba had reported those terrorist actions to the FBI, but the U.S. Government did not capture those who organized such actions against Cuba; instead American authorities framed and arrested the five Cubans, while a ferocious media campaign that labeled them as “spies” led  to a biased trial that processed them in an excessive manner, despite the fact that  they had not infiltrated any US government institution or had any sensitive information in their possession.

Parnell Campbell noticed that while Washington speaks of fighting terror, it behaves contrary to its statements in this case.

Campbell explained that all law students know that no trial is supposed to take place in a location where people are biased against the defendants, but this precept is not possible to secure in Florida and particularly in Miami in the case of the Five. Prestigious lawyers from the U.S., the United Nations and other international organizations have put emphasis on that condition as a key point to get a fair trial.

After sending a happy birthday message to Gerardo and Ramón, Dr. Campbell provided all the websites providing information about the case of Five and he promoted the international campaign, which on the fifth each month, sends a message to Washington demanding the release of the Cuban Five

Parnell Campbell closed his show by pointing out that President Barack Obama is  the only one who can really put an end to this injustice, and he urged him to exercise his powers and set free these five Cubans.

Source: Cuba’s Embassy to St. Vincent and the Grenadines

A translation by: Silke Paez Carr

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