[NYTr] Alice Walker Backs the Cuban Five

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

[This AP story, un-bylined in the Miami Herald copy published, is
actually a good brief, economical summary of the case, lists
the charges mostly ACCURATELY (for once) and the range of the most 
severe of the sentences (if not all of them) imposed. -NYTr]

sent by Jane Franklin

AP via The Miami Herald - Sep 13, 2007
(no URL provided)

Alice Walker backs 5 jailed Cuban agents

(AP) -- The Cuban government distributed a letter on Wednesday in which 
American author Alice Walker expressed her support to the children of
five Cuban intelligence agents imprisoned in the United States.

Walker, who won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Color Purple, has
in the past joined American writers, artists and intellectuals in
demanding the release of the so-called Cuban 5, who were convicted in
2001 of being unregistered foreign agents operating in the United
States.

The letter was released Wednesday at a news conference held in Havana
to unveil a new Cuban book celebrating the five. It was signed
''Alice,'' with ''Walker'' in parentheses.

''In my own experience, everything to do with attaining justice has
been very hard, very difficult, a very long struggle. Apparently
endless, in fact,'' the letter said. ``That is unfortunately the
experience of much of the world. Still, we persist in our hope of
justice.''

In addition to the charges of being unregistered agents, three of the
Cuban 5 were convicted of espionage conspiracy for efforts to penetrate
U.S. military bases, and one was also found guilty of murder conspiracy
in the deaths of four Miami-based pilots whose small, private planes
were shot down by a Cuban MiG in 1996.

All five have denied the charges and say they were sent to South
Florida to gather information about ''terrorist'' exile groups opposed
to Castro, not the U.S. government.

The agents are currently seeking a new trial that they hope will
overturn their prison sentences, which range from 15 years to life.