Several Cuban exile organizations are launching a campaign to persuade President Bush to pardon convicted Cuban exile militant Eduardo Arocena, reputed mastermind of Omega 7.
Arocena, 65, was sentenced to life in prison for gunning down a Cuban diplomat and for several bombings in the New York City area. Also, a federal jury in Miami convicted Arocena of planting nine bombs over a four-year period in the Miami area.
The photo by El Nuevo Herald photographer Roberto Koltun shows a 2007 rally in support of Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles in which some people carried placards urging the U.S. government to release Arocena from prison.
Arocena’s wife, Miriam, is spearheading the campaign through a website – www.libertadparaarocena.com -- in which she asks for signatures for a petition to be sent to President Bush for a pardon before he leaves office.
“After 25 years in prison in the United States, I have again taken up the cause seeking a presidential pardon for my husband, Eduardo Arocena,’’ Miriam Arocena wrote in an open letter featured on the website.
“My husband was sentenced severely, perhaps to more time than his actions warranted, for having violated some laws of the United States. But it should be remembered that his actions were carried out on behalf of his deep desire to return liberty and democracy to our fatherland, Cuba…’’
According to a YouTube video on the pardon campaign, the crusade has been endorsed by the former Cuban political prisoner group Presidio Politico Historico Cubano.
-- Alfonso Chardy
Sorry, but if you go out and killing people, regardless of who it is, you deserved to be punished!
Posted by: Jerome Melgar | July 06, 2008 at 11:33 PM
My seniments exactly. If anyone else in the world did what he did to a US Diplomat, it would be considered terrorism. We all would be ready to go after them.
I am a Cuban American, and very proud of my heritage and I would like communism to fall in Cuba just as much as any of the rest of us, but I cannot agree with this man's actions. That is not how to combat this regime.
Posted by: A | July 09, 2008 at 09:24 AM
Mr. Edwardo Arocena should be granted his freedom by President Bush.
I support FREEDOM FOR THIS cuban PATRIOT.
Posted by: Henry Agueros | July 09, 2008 at 11:45 AM
Articles of Arocena's arrest and trial from 1983 to 1985 can be found here:
http://eduardoarocena.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Mambi Watch | July 23, 2008 at 04:06 AM