Minute By Minute: Cuban 5 Arrive in Venezuela
The five Cubans, recently released after years in prison in the United States for their anti-terrorism activities, arrived in Venezuela as part of an international tour.
The Cuban Five arrived in Caracas, Venezuela Monday following an invitation from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
The group is expected to visit six Venezuelan states, starting in the capital of Caracas.
The Cuban Five were imprisoned in the United States in 1998 and sentenced in 2001 on espionage charges. The five Cuban nationals had been monitoring Miami-based terrorist groups plotting to attack Cuba, and carried out no known espionage against the U.S. government.
They were held without bail for 33 months between arrest and trial, with advocates denouncing that the Cubans were kept in solitary confinement for 17 months and denied communication with the outside world.
After years of an international campaign calling for their release, the last of the five were released in December 2014, coinciding with announcements from Cuban President Raul Castro and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama that the two countries would begin to re-establish ties.
The Cuban Five’s upcoming visit to Venezuela will be the first official international tour of the entire group since the 2014 releases.