Cuban dissident: Castro should be tried
WARSAW, Poland -- Fidel Castro should face an international tribunal for
alleged crimes against his own people, a recently released Cuban
dissident said Thursday.
Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta, part of a group of political prisoners
released in August following negotiations between the Roman Catholic
Church and Cuba's government, charged that the island nation's prisons
are "apocalyptic."
He also said he was tortured behind bars, though he did not elaborate
and his account could not be verified.
Cuba strenuously denies any torture in its jails, and it brands
opposition activists as mercenaries paid by the U.S. government to
discredit the revolution.
It says complaints by the West about its human rights record are
hypocritical in light of evidence America tortured inmates held without
charge at Guantanamo Bay, and says U.S. allies in Europe and elsewhere
were complicit in helping Washington set up secret prisons to illegally
hold terror suspects.
Acosta was arrested in Cuba during a 2003 crackdown on dissent and
sentenced to 12 years in prison on charges of treason. He accepted
repatriation to Spain as an apparent condition of his release.
Acosta was in Warsaw at the invitation of Polish lawmakers. He urged
Poland and other EU countries to put pressure on Cuba to improve its
human rights record.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/09/1815643/cuban-dissident-castro-should.html
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