Antonio Guerrero Rodríguez was born in Miami on October 18, 1958 in a humble family that returned to Cuba in the first days of 1959 after the triumph of the revolution. “Tony”, as his friends call him, left an imprint of his strong and friendly character in all the schools where he studied together with many anecdotes of his meticulosity, vegetarian customs and his hobby of practicing yoga. Due to all this his prison mates nicknamed him “the fakir”.

After coming back to Cuba with his parents, he started school in 1962 and studied, secondary education and senior high school at "Vladimir I. Lenin" high school in Havana. In 1974 joined the ranks of the Young Communist League (UJC) and in 1983 majored in Civil Engineering with a master in Airport Construction in the former Soviet Union.

He is remembered everywhere with a soccer ball, as a poet and a student leader. He later entered the Communist Party of Cuba.

While working in Cubana de Aviación, he married a Panamanian citizen and traveled to Panama. There he had a son and later divorced and moved to Miami where he worked and modestly lived. There, he met Margaret Becquer, Maggy, who he married in 1998. His mother’s name is Mirta Rodríguez Pérez.

THE MISSION

Antonio Guerrero’s 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 the 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 indifference concerning denounces about criminal plans against Cuba.

Attacks and terrorist actions against Cuba since 1959 –year of the Revolution Victory—caused the 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 star (Barry) McCafrey stated that the Caribbean nation was no port 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 them 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

A board of experts in Havana characterized the Miami District Attorney’s Office that sentenced Antonio Guerrero as unmoral and cynical after charging him with attempting against the United States’ national security.

At the sentence hearing of Antonio Guerrero, 42 years old, he was sentenced to life imprisonment and two more five-year sentences.

Havana University Law Professor Dr. Julio Fernández Bulté stated that there was no proof of the alleged charges in Guerrero’s case. He considered Guerrero’s life sentence “a terrible juridical violation”.

Of the five accused Cubans in this case, three were sentenced to life imprisonment, one to 19 years of imprisonment and another to 15 years. They are considered innocent in their country since they only gathered information on terrorist plans against their country.

As the rest of his fellow companions, Guerrero did not regret his mission in the USA and restated the island’s right to defend itself after being attacked and slandered for more than four decades by the right wing sectors settled in Miami.

The criminal actions reported in Cuba in 43 years, as stated in his statement, are created following terrorist plans organized and financed in their great majority within the United States with the tolerance of that government’s authorities.

There has been practically nothing performed to avoid those terrorist actions and the aggression has not been stopped. At the same time the persons responsible for those outrageous actions walk freely by the streets of Miami and in the radio stations hatred and other similar actions are promoted, stated Guerrero when talking in court.

THE PRISON

Antonio Guerrero is serving a life sentence plus two additional verdicts of five years and eight months at Florence prison in Colorado. 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.

His lawyer, Jack Blumenfeld, had stated his displeasure by the transfer of the five Cubans to far apart prisons. He also stated, according to a journalistic research, that Denver prison, where Guerrero was located, had witnessed several prisoner homicides perpetrated by guards.

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.