A Cuban-American jailed in Cuba since 2006 is freed and sent home
because of ill health
Julio Rafael Mesa Fariñas, freed by Cuba on Friday, was in a cell next
to Alan Gross during part of his incarceration.
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@elnuevoherald.com
The Cuban government freed a former Hialeah truck driver jailed since
2006 for a people-smuggling attempt in which a smuggler died and allowed
him to fly home because he was ill.
Julio Rafael Mesa Fariñas, 51, said he was taken to the Havana airport
Wednesday directly from a cell next to the one where U.S. subcontractor
Alan Gross is being held and flew to Miami with the help of U.S.
diplomats in Havana.
During his six years in prison, Mesa said, he was hospitalized several
times because of hunger strikes, was bitten twice by guard dogs while
handcuffed and suffered hypothermia when he refused to wear prison uniforms.
Cuban officials told him that he was being freed because of his ill
health. He is now in a wheelchair and suffered a seizure Thursday that
landed him in a hospital, Mesa told El Nuevo Herald during a lengthy
phone interview Friday.
Mesa said he and two other Cubans set out from Mexico's Caribbean state
of Quintana Roo aboard a 40-foot boat in April of 2006. They had been
hired to pick up 44 people trying to escape from the southern coast of
Pinar Del Rio Province.
The Cuban government alleged the boat was intercepted by one of its
Coast Guard vessels, failed to heed a warning to stop and took
"aggressive actions" that required guardsmen to open fire. Geovel
González Morera, one of the smugglers, was shot and killed and Rosendo
Salgado was shot in the foot. Salgado and Mesa, both U.S. citizens, were
sentenced to 26 and 20 years in prison, respectively.
"There was no warning of any kind. A flare went up and they
automatically opened fire. They assassinated Morera," said Mesa, who
added that he plans to file a lawsuit against Cuba "for Morera's murder."
Mesa noted that during the clash a guardsman threw a rock that hit him
on the head, causing partial paralysis and landing him in a hospital for
a month. While odd, he said, the rock-throwing is noted in the documents
of his court case.
He launched several liquids-only hunger strikes at the Combinado del
Este prison in Havana to demand a transfer to La Condesa, reserved for
foreigners, or a reduction of his sentence, Mesa added. Former political
prisoners Oscar Elias Biscet and Angel Moya confirmed Friday that they
met Mesa in prison and that he staged several hunger strikes. Other
details of his tale could not be independently confirmed.
Mesa said he was in and out of several hospitals because of his hunger
strikes, and spent two periods in the prison wing of the Military
Hospital Carlos J. Finlay in Havana's Marianao section. That is the
hospital where Gross is being held.
Gross was arrested in late 2009 and was sentenced to 15 years for
delivering sophisticated communications equipment to the Cuban Jewish
community. The equipment was paid for by the U.S. government as part of
a program that Havana has labeled as "subversive."
Mesa said during his second stay at the military hospital where he was
held for 60 days before he was released, Gross appeared to be thinner
and "unwell" but "in good spirits" and that he had benefits that Cuban
prisoners did not, such as air conditioning in his room and a special diet.
Guards did not allow them to talk, he added, but he heard Gross shouting
that a State Security official "had lied" by promising benefits, such as
a reduction in his sentence, if he cooperated with the investigation.
Also held at the military hospital is Rolando García Pereira, a U.S.
resident convicted of people trafficking in 2001.
Mesa left Cuba during the Mariel boatlift in 1980 and during a return
visit he met a woman and they had a son. He promised smugglers to pick
them up for $20,000, he said, and was working off the debt when he was
captured.
He said that after Cuban officials told him that he would be freed, two
U.S. diplomats in Havana visited him to arrange his departure. He
received a valid U.S. passport, and a daughter sent him the money for
the flight to Miami.
It was not immediately clear whether Mesa could face criminal charges in
the United States for the people-smuggling case.
As he left Havana, Mesa said, Cuban immigration officials stamped every
single page of his passport so he could never use it again. Arriving in
Miami in a wheelchair and with a stamped-up passport after a six-year
absence, he said he was greeted with a "Welcome home. No questions. No
nothing."
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