Up next, we bring you a Radio Havana Cuba (RHC) interview with Richard
Klugh, one of the members of the defense team of the Cuban Five, on the
conditions of supervised release imposed on Rene Gonzalez, one of the
Five, who was released from Marianna Prison in Florida on October 7, after
serving his sentence.
 
Journalist Bernie Dwyer interviewed Richard Klugh, by telephone to his
office in Miami on Friday, October 14, 2011:

Bernie Dwyer (BD): Before addressing Rene’s probation conditions, maybe we
could clear up a couple of misunderstandings. Some media reports seem to
suggest that the probation period that Rene is serving in Florida was
additional to his original sentence and that it was slapped on him without
much notice. Could you clear that up, please?

Richard Klugh (RK): The supervised release or probation term was part of
the original sentence. It’s part of every sentence. What was decided at
the last moment was that unlike other foreign nationals whose families
live outside of the United States, Rene would not be permitted to join his
family.

BD: Is this because he is a US citizen?

RK: The explanation given --and this is a unique case, and when I say
unique it is the only time that it has ever occurred -- is that because
the court has the power to keep him in the United States, the court is
going to keep him in the United States. There was not a mention of his US
citizenship in any order although presumably if he were not a United
States citizen, the US government could punish him in a different way by
putting him through further and lengthy incarceration in order to process
the deportation proceedings.

BD: It has also been suggested that Rene was sentenced to 15 years
imprisonment and that he served his full term. On the other hand he was
released after 13 years. Could you comment on that?

RK: The law in the United States, as I think is true generally in other
countries, is that in order to provide an incentive to good conduct,
prisoners are given credit towards the completion of their sentence by
exhibiting good conduct. The credit in the United States is very small,
slightly more than 10% but Rene’s conduct was, of course, exemplary and he
had no problems whatsoever. He completed his fifteen year sentence in just
slightly more than thirteen years.

BD: The night before his release, Rene Gonzalez was held in the isolation
cell in Marianna Prison known as The Hole. Is this a normal procedure?

RK: To my knowledge, that is unusual, and the reasons for that have not
been made clear to me. I have not previously encountered that occurring in
any other situation.

BD: Can we draw anything from that?

RK: I don’t know what we can draw from it. The truth is that Rene was kept
in a prison setting that was too high for his status. Again, if he is
being treated as a United States citizen, then of course, he should have
several years ago been allowed to go to a prison camp rather than have
been held in a prison. But the treatment of Rene was extraordinarily harsh
despite his perfect conduct.

BD: Let’s talk now about Rene’s conditions of probation. Can you outline
the regime he has to follow?

RK: He has to meet the standard conditions of supervised release. The
purpose of supervised release is to reorient and reintegrate somebody into
society and to do the normal things in society. One of the primary
purposes is family support, going to work to support your family but of
course in his situation, the entire function of supervised release appears
to be to separate him from his family and make it even more difficult for
him to support his family.

So it’s very difficult to reconcile the letter of the law with what the
effect of it is. But he cannot violate any laws and he must report to the
probation officer once a month and he must maintain a residence.
Essentially those are the standard conditions.

The judge added a condition in his case that was noted from the beginning
as being unusual-that he was barred from associating with terrorist
associations.

Presumably that was to do with the fact that he was investigating the
Brothers to the Rescue organization, that violated Cuban territory and
that Cuba regarded as a terrorist organization.

So it’s always been perplexing as to what the meaning of that part of the
order was unless it meant he was to cease investigating acts of terrorism
against Cuba.

BD: Is he allowed to move outside the State of Florida or must he stay
within any geographical limits?

RK: His movements outside of the Southern Florida area are regulated by
the court and the probation office so that he has to obtain permission.

BD: In other words, he needs to have residence there in Miami?

RK: He can theoretically petition to change his residence to a different
area. However that is not automatically permitted and in a case of this
type where supervised release is being used essentially as a means to
further punish him it seems unlikely that he will be able to do that. But
again, the irony of this case is that the supervised release is being used
to prevent him from reuniting with his family, to prevent him from
providing emotional and other support to his daughters and his wife and to
continue to enforce the unnecessary separation of husband and wife, of
father and daughters.

BD: Would you say that the regime that has been imposed on Rene Gonzalez
is equal to that of most prisoners, and we are not talking about hardened
criminals here, who come out of prison and are under supervised
conditions? Would you say that what Rene is going through is more or less
equal to that?

RK: The difference between what Rene is experiencing and what other
prisoners have experienced is that in every other case the defendant is
allowed to rejoin his family.

So the unique harshness that has happened to Rene is this case is that the
fundamental purpose of a supervised release, which is to help somebody to
reestablish their connection to their family, to re-establish their lives,
is being completely undermined by the supervised release itself. Hence the
fact that the United States has used it as a negotiating tactic makes it
quite clear that its purpose is to inflict some form of harm or punishment
that is not inflicted in any other case.

So that while in a technical sense, ordinarily someone would come back to
live in the district and would be subject to supervision. There is, to my
knowledge, no prior case in the history of the United States in which
someone who has foreign nationality, as Rene has, whose family lives in a
foreign country and whose wife cannot travel to the United States, has
been barred from re-uniting with his family -family being so important to
the very purpose of supervised release.

BD: And Rene Gonzalez himself, what form is he in with this new imposition
that he has to suffer?

RK: Rene is a very strong individual. Obviously he has indicated in an
expressive way how strongly he feels that the mission that he was on had
no intent at all to harm the United States and that he harbors no ill-will
towards the United States in that regard. So he’s a strong individual who
will be able to withstand whatever form of punishment he faces. And it’s
unfortunate that processes that are meant for other purposes are being
used to serve political ends in a completely disproportionate and unjust way.

BD: Will the other four, Gerardo Hernandez, Fernando Gonzalez, Antonio
Guerrero and Ramon Labañino, who are still serving out their long, long
sentences, have to do their probation in the United States?

RK: Theoretically by having United States citizenship another of the Five
could face the same possibilities. One would hope that when they are
released they would face a more reasonable government approach.

BD: So we are talking about Antonio here. This won’t apply to Gerardo,
Ramon and Fernando?

RK: That’s correct.

BD: What is the current legal position at present of the other four?

RK: They are all pursuing relief from extraordinary violations of
fundamental rights to a fair trial. They are pursuing what every day is
revealed more clearly to have been an illegitimate effort by the United
States to create an environment that was so hostile and prejudicial to the
Five that they could not possibly receive a fair trial.

We are litigating point by point the fallacy of the government arguments,
the presentation of false evidence, and the misuse of evidence in order to
convict not just Gerardo but all of the Five, further pointing out how
coordinated an effort the political and prosecutorial misconduct was in
this case - again, an extraordinary and unjust way to gain these unjust
convictions and sentences.

BD: Has there been any response from the US legal system?

RK: We are waiting a further response by the United States regarding the
petitions filed by Ramon and Fernando and it is anticipated that they will
file their response at the end of November.

This interview was aired by Radio Havana Cuba on October 17, 2011, and
kindly sent to ACN by journalist Bernie Dwyer.