"While the rest of the kids were playing baseball and only said hi to them he, instead, helped them with their purses and helped carry them to their houses".

Since early age he was fond of cartoons, he participated in contests and the people kept asking him how come being so serious he could have so much humor.

His schoolmates and teachers in all the schools he went to liked him and remember his sense of responsibility. He used to go out with his friends, play baseball. He went to the countryside school and when he finished high school he went to college to the International Relations Institute.

In college he was a leading member of the University Students Federation. He was in the school theater group, practiced karate, was editor in a bulletin, drew his cartoons and published them in a national humor newspaper. At the same time he continued his studies and was member of the Young Communist League (UJC). When he finished college at the Higher Institute of International Relations of Havana , he traveled to People's Republic of Angola as international fighter.

When 10 years ago his father died, he was in Cuba, but when died his older sister in a plane crash he was already out of the country accomplishing the mission assigned.

He has been married to Adriana Pérez for 16 years. She is today 32 years old and due to Gerardo's tasks she has postponed several of her individual projects as being a mother and try to share her life in marriage like any other normal couple. Her husband Gerardo Hernández, is kept imprisoned in the USA after a Miami court sentenced him without any evidence proving the magnitude of the sentences.

Adriana stayed alone in Havana, while his life companion is kept behind bars in a prison in Lompoc, California. In spite of that she has decided to keep her couple relation because she is convinced that he is not a terrorist and that if he ever left to the USA it was not to harm someone but to make good for both peoples.

"A terrorist cannot be a person who hates that kind of actions, who is always surrounded by people who love him and has a great number of true friends. A person who does not raise his voice even when he disagrees with the ideas said by other persons and who tries his best to make people forget their worries, feel better and feel happy" says Adriana.

Once, she continues, they were at a family party at her house and she suddenly notices that he is talking with a neighbor who had some mental disorder. The woman invited him to have a cigarette and Gerardo, who did not smoke, accepted quite naturally.

"I reprimanded him for smoking and he answered - Who cares! Don't you see she wanted to talk". This experience tells a lot of a behavior that has been kept even in jail where he has gained the recognition of the inmates and now they come to him looking for advice to solve problems, situations and even call him the "graduate".

While imprisoned in Miami, Gerardo met a Cuban who had lost his relatives in that country and was "asphyxiated" - that is how are called those who can barely keep an emotional and psychic balance-and through Gerardo and Adriana's relatives in Cuba he made contact with a sister who was not living in the island anymore and had emigrated to the USA.

"Finally the man could contact his sister and later went to see Gerardo and had no words to show how grateful he was. He even brought him presents Gerardo would not accept just because Gerardo acted in that way. The saddest thing was, as he told me, that he showed him the marks he had in his arms of the different times he had tried to kill himself because he had no reason to live".

"He considered Gerardo as the greatest joy in all those years and that God had placed him there to help him. Other prisoners approached him to thank him for that human gesture. I know he did it because he is accustomed to that, he was born full of solidarity".

Adriana's conviction that her husband is not an assassin, as it has been said by some US press is supported on the fact that "not only I am his wife and I am Cuban, but also because those men went there to protect the Cuban and the US people and would have done the same with any other threatened country".

She spent with Gerardo the two years he lived in the People's Republic of Angola. He left to "accomplish a patriotic duty" the day before their first wedding anniversary.

To Adriana, the simple fact of being useful to the society was not the only thing that made him accept the mission of compiling information on the terrorist plans against Cuba. That decision is closely related to the feelings of identity with his society someone may have. Characteristics as a human being, personal experience, the individual personal training are among the things that make him accept that mission without thinking, not even of the risks involved.

"For both of us there are events in history that have left a deep trace in our lives. One of them is the terrorist action against the Cubana de Aviación flight in 1973 where 73 people were killed. In his statement he says that he would have given his own blood to prevent the death of thousands of Cubans due to terrorist actions during the 43 years of revolution".

THE MISSION

Gerardo Hernández case, as that of the other four Cuban imprisoned in Miami accused of jeopardizing US national security, including other charges, is another Washington's political vendetta against Cuban revolution.

Member of the Young Communist League (UJC) National Committee Randy Alonso stated before the delegates to the 2nd Youth Meeting Cuba-US that the five Cuban imprisoned as terrible spies in US prisons only had as mission to compile information on the terrorist plans of anti-Cuban groups operating from Florida.

He expounded that to understand the mission they carried out on US territory it was necessary to analyze the different administration's indifference concerning denounces about criminal plans against Cuba.

Attacks and terrorist actions against Cuba since 1959 -year of the Revolution's Victory-caused death to more than three thousand Cubans and injuries to a similar number, as well as damages estimated in around 100 billion dollars, he added.

Alonso, who also hosts a TV show about Cuban society's interesting top themes explained the circumstances in which the five Cubans were arrested in September 1998 and denounced that the "political and manipulated" trial was actually against the Cuban revolution.

On that year 1998, added the youth leader, during a hearing in the Pentagon it was said that Cuba was not representing a menace to the USA. Even drug tsar (Barry) McCafrey stated that the Caribbean nation was no port of call for drug dealers due to the government actions to fight that problem.

However, added Randy, two months after (July 1998) Cuba delivered to Washington proofs of the terrorist activity organized by right wing groups settled in Miami, as the Cuban American Foundation, The FBI answered with the arrest of the five Cubans.

According to Alonso, The Cuban Ministry of Interior delivered enough material on the counterrevolutionary activity organized and financed in that country, together with recordings on similar plans, thanks in part to the work of these five arrested men.

Only in the past decade, when the island was going through its worst economic crisis after the triumph of the revolution in 1959, made even worse with the embargo from Washington, were stopped 170 terrorist actions, including plans to kill President Fidel Castro.

Alonso also said that the five Cubans arrested in Miami, three of which were given life sentences, did gathered information on terrorism towards their country, but never attempted against the US national security because, besides, they did not have access to classified information.

"They worked and lived the best they could, they did not receive a great salary and did not have access to strategic programs of that country" said the student leader.

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

Gerardo Hernández was given two life sentences and 15 more years by a federal court of Miami. He was accused of, among other things, "conspiracy to murder" in relation with the shooting down of two planes owned by the anti Cuban organization Hermanos al Rescate on February 24 1996 due to their repeated and dangerous violation of the island's air space.

That same week the same judge, Joan Lenard, sentenced to life imprisonment 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 sentences of five years each.

A Florida federal court also condemned René González to 15 years of imprisonment accused of endangering the national security of the USA. Fernando González was sentenced to 19 years of imprisonment accused with the same charges that have not been proven.

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".

Cuba says that he is innocent from all the charges against him since he only compiled information on the terrorist plans created by the anti Cuban organizations that work against the island from US territory, especially from the south of Florida.

The order of shooting down the intruder planes was given by the highest Cuban authorities who in repeated occasions warned the US authorities about the dangerous intrusions of the Hermanos al Rescate.

The head of the Cuba interest office in Washington, Dagoberto Rodríguez, said that the sentence against the Cuban patriot Gerardo Hernández is the result of the thirst for vengeance of the anti Cuban circles settled in the USA.

What happened shows the wish for vengeance of those anti Cuban groups who wander in official spheres, said the high official on the phone to the round table show broadcasted daily by the Cuban television.

There was all the terrorist fauna that looks forward to see with satisfaction the fulfillment of their wishes for vengeance, said Rodriguez.

He added that for them that is a way to revenge themselves from 40 years of failures. They try to vent their anger on our fellow countrymen without knowing that nothing can harm the attitude of our comrades and relatives.

According to Gonzalez, the final hearing of that trial was characterized by the fact that in the bench of the accused were sitting innocent people and in the room were the well known terrorists, registered as such by the US government official institutions.

PRISON

Gerardo Hernández is serving two life sentences and 15 years in Lompoc, a California 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.