ABSTRACT: Letter sent to the ambassador of Columbia from several Italian political personalities, whereby they ask to point out the case of the death sentences decided by Cuban courts to the United Nations Committee for Human Rights, urging a condemnation of Fidel Castro's regime.

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His Excellency

Rafael Rivas Posada

Ambassador of Columbia

to the U.N. Human Rights Committee

Special spokesman on Cuba

GENEVA

24 February 1992

Excellency,

International initiatives have been repeatedly promoted to urge the suspension of the death sentences inflicted by the Cuban regime, in particular against political dissidents.

Last January we addressed an appeal in this sense to Fidel Castro, President of the Council of State of Cuba, asking him to suspend the death sentences of Daniel Santovenia (which was thereafter transformed into imprisonment) and of Eduardo Diaz Betancourt (which was thereafter carried out).

On 19 February, two other young Cubans, Luis Miguel Almeida Pérez (aged 24) and René Salmeron Mendoza (aged 22), charged with committing homicides during an attempt to escape from the island, have been executed. During their trial, the rights of the defence were not respected; the defendants, among other things, were not given the chance to benefit of independent lawyers. Also for them, many authoritative appeals to use leniency had been addressed to the Cuban Council of State and to its President.

We ask you, Mr Ambassador, to point out this case to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, urging a condemnation of Fidel Castro's regime, also with the purpose of avoiding further death sentences from being carried out. While reiterating our firm opposition to capital punishment in any case, we furthermore suggest that the Committee ask the Cuban authorities to try the defendants of crimes punished with the death penalty in the respect of the internationally acknowledged trial guaranties.

We thank you for your kind attention.

Yours faithfully,

Paolo Ungari, President of the Human Rights Committee of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers

Alberto Benzoni, presidency of the Italian League for the Rights of Man

Laura Gonzales, President of the Italian Committee for Human Rights in Cuba

Emma Bonino, MP, President of the Radical Party

Margherita Boniver, MP, chairman of the International Department Italian Socialist Party

Flaminio Piccoli, MP, President of the Chamber Foreign Affairs Committee

Marco Pannella, Member of the European Parliament, President of the Radical Party's Federal Council

Giulio Orlando, MP, President of the parliamentary delegation of the North Atlantic Assembly

Sergio Stanzani, MP, Secretary of the Radical Party

Luca Anselmi, chairman of the International Department

Italian Liberal Party

Ersilia Salvato, MP, National direction of the Party of Communist Refoundation

Ivanca Corti, foreign affairs spokesman for the Italian Social Democratic Party