Appeals court rejects new trial request for Cuban agents

[David1]

ATLANTA - Five men convicted in Miami for being unregistered Cuban intelligence agents are not entitled to a new trial, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The five argued on appeal that pervasive community prejudice against the Cuban government and publicity surrounding the case prevented them from receiving a fair trial.

A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit threw out all the convictions last August, ruling that pretrial publicity combined with pervasive anti-Castro feeling in Miami didn't allow for a fair trial. The government asked the full appeals court to reconsider.

The entire 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, with two judges dissenting, affirmed the U.S. District Court's denial of a request for a change of venue and a new trial. It sent the case back to the three-judge appeals panel for consideration of remaining issues.

Attorneys for the defendants argued that at the time of the trial, the community was focused on the case of Elian Gonzalez.

The five men, arrested in 1998, have acknowledged being Cuban agents, but said they were spying not on the United States but on U.S.-based exile groups planning terrorist actions against the Castro government.

The five were convicted in 2001. Elian Gonzalez, a 5-year-old boy, was found clinging to an inner tube in November 1999 after a boat carrying would-be migrants capsized in a storm. His mother died, and after a court battle waged by his anti-Castro relatives in Miami, Elian was handed over to his Cuban father by the U.S. government in 2000.

Assistant U.S. Attorney David Buckner insisted during oral arguments earlier this year that the trial was fair because the court took "vigorous and ultimately successful steps" to select and isolate jurors - none of whom was of Cuban ancestry.

The appeals court agreed. "Nothing in the trial record suggests that 12 fair and impartial jurors could not be assembled by the trial judge to try the defendants impartially and fairly," Judge Charles R. Wilson wrote for the majority.

Judge Stanley F. Birch Jr. wrote in dissent that "this case is one of those rare, exceptional cases that warrants a change of venue because of pervasive commmunity prejudice making it impossible to empanel an unbiased jury."

The defendants are Ruben Campa, Rene Gonzalez, Gerardo Hernandez, Luis Medina and Antonio Guerrero. They remain in prison.

Three of them, who also were convicted of espionage conspiracy for efforts to penetrate U.S. military bases, were sentenced to life in prison. Hernandez was also convicted of murder conspiracy in the deaths of four Miami-based pilots whose planes were shot down by Cuban jets in 1996 off the island's coast.

[David1]

from the AP wire here: http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/politics/15236431.htm