English
Español
This page is also available in: Spanish
On June 15, 2009 the U.S. Supreme Court announced, without explanation, its decision not to review the case of the Five, in spite of the solid arguments made by the defense attorneys from the obvious and multiple legal violations committed during the whole trial.
The US Supreme Court ignored also the universal backing to the petition and to the Five, expressed by 12 amicus curiae briefs, an unprecedented fact since it is the largest number of amicus briefs ever to have urged US Supreme Court to review a criminal conviction.
Ten Nobel laureates, among them Timor Leste President Jose Ramos Horta, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Rigoberta Menchu, Jose Saramago, Wole Soyinka, Zhores Alferov, Nadine Gordimer, Gunter Grass, Dario Fo and Mairead Maguire, as well as the Mexican Senate, the National Assembly of Panama, and Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland (1992-97) and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997-2002), and UNESCO General Director Federico Mayor, among others, signed the amicus briefs.
They were joined by hundreds of parliamentarians around the world, among them 75 members of the European Parliament, including two ex presidents and three current vice presidents of this Legislature; as well as numerous legal and human rights associations of different countries of Europe, Asia and Latin America, international personalities and legal and academic organizations in the United States.
INTERNATIONAL
Parlamentarians: Senate of United Mexican States; National Assembly of Panama; Mary Robinson (United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 1997-2002; President of Ireland, 1992-1997); Legislators from the European Parliament and Countries of Brazil, Belgium, Chile, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Scotland and the United Kingdom.
Nobel Laureates: Jose Ramos-Horta, Wole Soyinka, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Nadine Gordimer, Rigoberta Menchú, José Saramago, Zhores Alferov, Dario Fo, Günter Grass, Máiread Corrigan Maguire.
Bar Associations and Human Rights Organizations:
- Ibero-American Federation of Ombudsmen; Order of Attorneys of Brazil; Belgian Bar Association; Berlin Bar Association; Committee for Human Rights of the Portuguese Bar Association; International Federation of Human Rights; Judge Juan Guzman Tapia of Chile; Human Rights and Legal Organizations, Law Professors and Lawyers from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Panama, Portugal, Spain and United Kingdom.
- International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) and American Association of Jurists (Asociación Americana de Juristas) (AAJ)
UNITED STATES
Center for International Policy; Council on Hemispheric Affairs.
Civil Rights Clinic at Howard University School of Law.
Cuban-American Scholars: Professors Nelson P. Valdés, Guillermo Grenier, Félix Masud-Piloto, José A. Cobas, Lourdes Arguelles, Rubén G. Rumbaut, Louis Pérez.
Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Miami Chapter.
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
National Jury Project.
National Lawyers Guild and National Conference of Black Lawyers.
William C. Velasquez Institute and Mexican American Political Association.