Cuba Commutes Death Sentence for U.S.-Based Terrorist

Cuba Commutes Death Sentence for U.S.-Based TerroristHavana, Dec 29. -The State Security Court of the Cuban People's Supreme Court commuted the death sentence of terrorist Humberto Eladio Real Suarez to 30 years in prison.

The court issued its ruling on Tuesday, at the conclusion of an appeal hearing for Real Suarez, who was given the death sentence for the crimes of acts against state security, murder, and the firing of a firearm against another person.

In making its decision, the court took into consideration a Council of State decree on April 28, 2008, via which the death penalty of several convicted criminals were commuted, as well as the remorse demonstrated by Real Suarez regarding the crimes committed.

The court also upheld the guilty verdict of Real Suarez with respect to the crimes for which he was sentenced in the Villa Clara People's Provincial Court.

It was in Villa Clara that Real Suarez illegally entered the country early in the morning of Oct. 15, 1994. He was coming from the United States as part of a terrorist group of six other Cubans based in that country, led by a counterrevolutionary, Miami-based organization, the Democratic National Unity Party (PUND).

During his entry into the country, Real Suarez murdered a resident of the town of Caibarien.

The group was arrested by Cuban authorities, who seized five AK-47 assault rifles, an AR-15, an M-14S, four pistols and other items, the Cubadebate website reported.

The seven men testified in court that they were recruited by the PUND from 1993 to 1994 and received military training in several camps in the U.S. state of Florida with the goal of secretly entering Cuba.

Their plan was to set themselves up in the Escambray Mountains, very close to where their boat landed, to organize guerrilla forces and carry out actions to destabilize the country.

Ever since the Revolution was victorious in 1959, some 713 acts of terrorism have been carried out against Cuba, 56 of them after 1990, and they were organized and financed by forces within the United States.

Those actions caused 3,478 deaths and 2,099 permanently mutilated victims.(Prensa Latina)