A member of the jailed Cuban nationals “the Cuban Five” has spoken out ahead of a federal appeals court hearing next month. Gerardo Hernandez was among the five Cubans convicted in 2001 for spying on behalf of the Cuban government. Their convictions were overturned nearly two years ago when a judge agreed that anti-Castro bias in Miami had denied them a fair trial. But that decision was later reversed. Gerardo Hernandez spoke in an interview from a maximum-security California prison.

Gerardo Hernandez: “You can be a terrorist in this country if your terrorism is against Cuba — no problem with that. Those are the good terrorists of the U.S. government, the anti-Castro terrorists, anti-Castro militants, as they used to be called. If you go to the worst espionage cases in the U.S. history, those people had life sentences for having stolen very secret and damaging documents for foreign powers. Those spies got life sentences, and I got life sentence for having stolen nothing.”