(AFP)
HAVANA — Cuba's government Saturday began releasing a small group of
ailing political prisoners as part of a wider agreement to free 52
dissidents, relatives of three released prisoners told AFP.
The three were released to undisclosed locations, and were reportedly
among a group of 17 of the dissidents who plan to go to Spain.
The unusual prisoner release, set to be the biggest this decade on the
communist-ruled island, was announced earlier this week after
unprecedented talks between President Raul Castro and Cardinal Jaime Ortega.
Dissident Jose Luis Garcia Paneque phoned his family to tell them he was
being transferred from the Las Tunas provincial prison to an unspecified
location in Havana, according to his cousin Raul Smith.
Meanwhile the wives of dissidents Pablo Pacheco and Luis Milan received
calls from other inmates telling them that their husbands had been released.
A church official said earlier that 10 Cuban dissidents would be freed
and would travel to Spain "soon," as part of the deal negotiated by the
Cuban Roman Catholic church.
Under the agreement, 52 political prisoners will eventually be freed,
but the initial release had been expected to include just five detainees.
On Thursday, the church announced the names of five prisoners it said
would be freed imminently, but none were apparently set free until the
announcement of the three on Saturday.
The families of the five told AFP they had been contacted by authorities
and told to be prepared to travel after their relatives were released.
On Saturday, the Archbishop of Havana said in a statement that another
five detainees would be "leaving soon to Spain" as part of "the
continuation of the process of prisoner releases."
All 52 were part of a group of 75 dissidents rounded up in 2003 and
sentenced to jail terms of between six and 28 years.
Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, who was in Cuba this
week to participate in the negotiations, said Madrid was willing to
receive all the freed prisoners.
But the church said prisoners will not be forced to go to Spain, calling
it a "proposal" and not "exile," as some in opposition activists charge.
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