Cuba Frees Political Prisoner After 22 Years
Cuba’s Communist authorities have freed one of the island’s longest-serving political prisoners, Ernesto Diaz Rodriguez, but the release was on health grounds and not for political reasons, a senior judicial official said Tuesday.
Lizzel Santana Gomez, assistant to Cuba’s attorney general, said that Diaz left prison Friday after serving 22 years of his 40-year sentence. He was arrested in 1968 for involvement in attempts to overthrow Cuba’s government.
She said that Diaz, who is in his 50s, has been suffering from high blood pressure and inflammation of the prostate gland. She did not know whether he would be allowed to emigrate from the island.
Diaz, along with another long-serving political prisoner, Mario Chanes de Armas, who is still in jail, had been the object of a vigorous campaign for release by international human rights organizations.
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