U.S. District Court Judge James Cohen reduced the prison sentences of right-wing anti-Cuban terrorists Osvaldo Mitat and Santiago Alvarez on June 6. This was in January 2007 after anonymous “donors” turned in a cache of weapons owned by the two in a deal with federal prosecutors.
Mitat and Alvarez were arrested in 2005 and charged with conspiring to possess illegal weapons and illegal storage of
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The most serious charges were dropped after the terrorists accepted a September 2006 plea deal. The deal reduced the sentences to a maximum of five years each.
Mitat and Alvarez eventually got three- and four-year sentences respectively.
The June 6 court ruling cut these meager sentences by a third, despite the judge’s acknowledgement that the arsenal was enough to level the courthouse where the hearing was held. The massive reduction was even more than the prosecution had requested.
The cache turned in to federal officials in January 2007 was considerably larger than the initial weapons seizure. It included 14 pounds of plastic explosives, 200 pounds of dynamite, 4,000 feet of detonator chords, 30 semiautomatic and automatic weapons, a grenade launcher, hand-made grenades, and recorded statements calling for the bombing of a crowded nightclub in Cuba. The anonymous supporters of Mitat and Alvarez who turned in the weapons are not under investigation.
Counting time served, Mitat could be freed by August and Alvarez by the end the year.
Both men still face trial in El Paso, Tex., for their refusal to testify in hearings related to the now dismissed immigration charges against co-terrorist Luis Posada Carriles. Alvarez is Posada’s financial benefactor. He helped smuggle Posada to the United States from Mexico on his own boat in 2005.
The outrageous sentence reductions come directly after another anti-Cuban fascist, Robert Ferro, was granted an unexplained reduction in charges stemming from the largest federal seizure of weapons owned by a civilian. Ferro was arrested in Southern California with an arsenal of 15,000 total firearms, including 35 machine guns, 130 silencers, 3 short-barreled rifles and 89,000 rounds of ammunition. The five initial charges against him were reduced to one—possession of 17 firearms and 1 hand grenade.
While these terrorists receive mere slaps on the wrist for planning and, in some cases committing acts of terrorism, the Cuban Five—Cuban nationals who were involved in stopping terrorist activity in Miami—have languished in prison since their arrest in 1998 with sentences ranging from 12 years to double life.
The U.S. government has been waging war against Cuba since the revolutionary triumph in 1959. Yet, the resolve of the Cuban people to build a society free from terror and exploitation has only strengthened.
The U.S. working class has common cause with the workers of Cuba. Terrorists like Alvarez, Mitat, Posada and Ferro—trained and harbored by Washington—are the enemies of all working people.
