He is a college graduate with Golden Degree from the Higher Institute of International Relations. According to his mother, during his time as a student, he liked to go to parties, to the beach with a tent. He always encouraged his friends since “he always saw things from a positive point of view and tried not to torture himself”.

According to his mother’s description “Fernando is a typical Cuban, he is not an extraordinary or super marvelous person. He likes to play baseball; he attended all voluntary work appointments. He is a normal person, he tries to dance, he likes music and is fond of listening to Cuban singer Silvio Rodríguez.

He served voluntarily in a mission as internationalist fighter in the Republic of Angola, assigned to a tank battalion.

In 1988 he entered the Communist Party of Cuba and in the mid-1990’s he left Cuba to accomplish the task of keeping safe his countrymen’s lives after 43 years of being threatened by terrorist aggressions organized in USA territory.

Fernando González stated: “I reassert being part of the Cuban people and of the Cuban revolution” in a letter to the mothers of his companions, moments before being sentenced to 19 years of imprisonment in a revengeful and fixed trial performed against five heroic Cubans in Miami.

During the general sentence hearing celebrated in Miami, Fernando was also proud of being among the ones who warned his country against terrorist actions and added that neither he nor his companions ever conspired against the USA national security. They did not spy on any state or military facility belonging to that country.

He is a man in loved of his wife Rosa Aurora Freijanes Coca who said that among Fernando’s most outstanding characteristics are his loyalty to his comrades, to his friends, to the revolution and its principles.

FERNANDO WATCHED THE TERRORISTS

The mission of Fernando González, sentenced in Miami on December 18 2001 to 19 years of imprisonment under the charges of jeopardizing the security of the USA, was to keep watch on a Cuban American who was considered a terrorist by the authorities of the island.

This was stated by journalist Lázaro Barredo during the Round Table TV show that analyzed the sentence given to one of the five Cubans on trial in federal court of Florida.

“Fernando had only one mission: to keep watch on a well known terrorist, Orlando Bosh” said Barredo.

Bosh is accused of being one of the main instigators of the demolition of a commercial Cuban airplane in mid-flight on October 1976 where 73 people died. He is also involved in other actions against the government of the island and though he has a record as terrorist in the US police records, he walks free by the streets of Miami.

In the statement read before the court, just before being sentenced, Fernando González denounced the complicity between the government of the USA and the anti Cuban fanatics who plot against the island.

“The terrorist groups of the Miami Cuban ultra-right wing were created, trained and financed by the CIA” said Fernando.

He kept on: “The Cuban people have the right to defend themselves, because up until now the U.S. government, which is responsible for enforcing the laws of this country and, has done very little or nothing to stop these activities against Cuba”.

“At no time did I endanger the national security of the United States, nor was this ever my intent or that of my comrades” said Fernando González in his statement.

Gerardo Hernández and Ramón Labañino were sentenced to life imprisonment, while Rene González was given a 15 years sentence. The fifth of the Cuban arrested on September 1998, Antonio Guerrero, is facing a life sentence and two sentences of 5 years each.

The Cuban government stated that the group only compiled information on the terrorist plans of the anti Cuban organizations established in South Florida.

Cuba also considers that his citizens have been subjected to a trial defined as “political, arranged and designed to satisfy the thirst for vengeance” of the ultraright wing sectors of the Cuban community in the USA.

“There can be no double standards. Terrorism must be fought and eliminated whether it is committed against a big and powerful country or against small countries” said González when defending his actions within US territory.

The participants at the round table also condemned the disproportionate sentences given to their five fellow countrymen and the political intolerance of the Miami anti Cuban organizations, that called for a protest demonstration in front of the house of lawyer Joaquín Méndez, a Cuban American who defended Fernando González.

ACCUSATION

The first accusation presented by the prosecutor was only nine pages long, where barely are found references to facts, adjectives and descriptions prevailing. It was a move to win some time until a second accusation was presented, in May 1999, eight months after the arrest. It is the moment when the charge on conspiracy to murder is presented, based on the alleged involvement of one of the accused, Gerardo, on the shooting down of the airplanes which violated Cuban airspace in February 1996.

The accusation, as it is known, had been the main issue of the terrorist mafia and of Miami’s press incessant and scandalous campaigns. To this point, the second accusation already counts on 40 pages, with charges to open a process and it is a little bit more documented, aimed to typify the alleged actions committed, but it has the flavor of the charge that has been “cooked” on slow fire, during 8 months, to please Cuba’s enemies. With it, it has been proved beyond objections that it is a political trial, clearly faked and manipulated.

To sum up, there are five charges: the first, conspiracy, which consists of an agreement to commit crime against United States or deceive this nation.

The second charge is espionage, that is, to compile information and send it out. But in that charge it is assumed that the information is something regarding the security of the United States or a supposed collaboration with a foreign country to harm the United States.

The third charge is conspiracy to murder. Premeditated conspiracy is an agreement to deliberately carry out the death of one or more people. This is what Gerardo was charged with, for the alleged crime of conspiracy on the shooting down of the airplanes.

The fourth charge is faking documents or issuing false statements before government authorities to get documents.

And the last charge, more formal than the other, the one of being foreign agent, consisting of acting as a foreign government’s agent without being diplomat or communicating it to US General Attorney. In the way the crime is typified on US penal code, the crime is not in being a foreign agent, but in being a foreign agent without being identified.

SENTENCE

Fernando González was sentenced on December 18 2001 in Miami to 19 years of imprisonment on the charges of endangering the security of the USA but his mission was to keep an eye on a Cuban American man, Orlando Bosh, who is accused of being a terrorist and US authorities have a record of him for that activity.

A federal court of Florida on December 14 2001 sentenced René González to 15 years of imprisonment. He is one of the five Cubans arrested in the USA, accused of endangering the national security of that country.

That same week the same judge, Joan Lenard, assigned life sentences to Gerardo Hernández and Ramón Labañino accused of trying to get into US military facilities and infiltrate anti Cuban groups settled in Miami.

Antonio Guerrero was also given a life sentence plus two five years sentences. René González , another of the Cubans arrested in the US, accused of endangering the national security of that country, was sentenced to 10 years because, according to the prosecution, was not registered as an agent belonging to a foreign country and received five more years for conspiracy for spying.

The Cuban government claims that those five people only compiled information to prevent terrorist actions organized and carried out against Cuba from the US territory by anti Cuban groups settled in Miami. According to that statement the Cuban government considers them as patriots and fighters against terrorism.

Cuba claims that those sentence hearings were manipulated and influenced by the Cuban American ultra right wing and described the trial as being “fixed, uninformed and performed under a colossal pressure”.

An official note read on Cuban television denounced that “the vengeance and ignominy dance is being performed in Miami, two courageous Cuban patriots, Gerardo Hernández and Ramón Labañino have received life sentences for the serious crime of protecting their people from death”.

THE PRISON

Fernando González is serving a sentence of 19 years in a Minnesota prison. He is intentionally kept away from the rest of his fellow companions as if physical distance could destroy the union existing between people whose main link is their common ideas and patriotism.

During a roundtable in Cuban television, participants compared the conditions in which this fighter against terrorism lives to the luxurious prisons where self-confessed and proven terrorists as anti-Cuban Luis Posada Carriles receive in Panama visits from their mafia friends from Miami and plan new terrorist actions against Cuba.

The five young Cubans sentenced in Miami were first moved, under strong watch, to prisons in Atlanta and Oklahoma and from there taken to their final prisons in different and far apart states.

“Strongly handcuffed, with not enough clothes to protect them from cold weather, thirsty and hungry during the transfer and later suffering the harsh conditions of the hole (isolation cells), our five heroes keep their high moral and untouched honor. Nothing will make them surrender” stated journalist Randy Alonso, moderator at a roundtable broadcasted by Cuban Television.

President Fidel Castro stated on June 23 2001 that those five imprisoned Cubans are political prisoners.