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Pardoned prisoners released

Published:Thursday | December 29, 2011 | 12:00 AM
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Former prisoner Jose Menendez, who served 26 years of a 44-year sentence, was originally sentenced to two years for illegally discharging a firearm when he was 19 years old. Subsequent charges were filed against him for crimes he is said to have committed while incarcerated, adding the additional 42 years to his two-year sentence.
Former prisoner Jose Menendez speaks during an interview in his home in Havana, Cuba, yesterday. Menendez, 46, is among the prisoners being released after Cuba's President Raul Castro announced on December 23 the pardoning of 2,900 prisoners.- AP photos
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HAVANA (AP):Cuba appeared to be making quick progress in meeting a pledge to free 2,900 pardoned prisoners, most of them convicted of minor crimes, even as a top human rights official on the island criticised the year-end amnesty as a "media show".

Human rights official Elizardo Sanchez and dissidents on the Communist-run island said yesterday that authorities had released more than 2,500 inmates. The government has published a list of names of those pardoned in the Official Gazette, but has not said how the liberations announced by President Raul Castro on Friday are going. Castro said he was granting the pardons in connection with an upcoming visit by Pope Benedict XVI.

One freed prisoner, Jose Menendez, told The Associated Press that it was a complete and welcome surprise when he heard his name over a prison loudspeaker and was told he was on the list.

"If I could talk to President Raul and the Pope, I would shake their hand and say that I am immensely grateful for this opportunity for life that they have given me," an emotional Menendez said from his small Havana apartment, his wife at his side.

Menendez, 46, was imprisoned in the late 1980s on gun charges, and subsequently convicted of other crimes committed while behind bars. He was not due to be released until 2029.

Castro announced the amnesty in a speech to lawmakers on Friday, and noted that most of those pardoned were first-time offenders, youths, women, inmates over 60 or those suffering from illness.