Jailed lawyer gets 12-year sentence

Rolando Jimenez Pozada

Rolando Jimenez Pozada, 37, a dissident lawyer in jail since April 2003, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison, according to reports, both in English and in Spanish.

His crime?

In part, exhibiting disrespect for Fidel Castro, as if that hijo de puta deserves anything resembling it.

Reuters reports:

HAVANA (Reuters) - A Cuban dissident who wrote "Down with Fidel Castro" and other opposition slogans on walls of public buildings was sentenced to 12 years in jail, a human rights group said on Monday.

Rolando Jimenez had been held without charges in a jail on the Island of Youth off Cuba's southern coast since his arrest in March 2003, the Cuban Commission for Human Rights said.

Amnesty International declared Jimenez a prisoner of conscience in 2004.

Jimenez, a 36-year-old lawyer, was not allowed to defend himself in court and was sentenced in a secret trial to 12 years for disrespecting the Cuban leader and divulging secrets of the state security police, the rights group said.

Veteran rights activist Elizardo Sanchez, who heads the illegal but tolerated commission, said Jimenez was the second dissident to be tried secretly this month by Cuba's communist authorities.

"This is a clear sign than they are getting tough on dissident activity again," Sanchez said.

Dissident journalist Oscar Sanchez, who reported for a Miami-based Web site called CubaNet, was arrested at his home April 13 and sentenced to four years in jail on a charge of "social dangerousness," he said.

He was not allowed a lawyer and his family was barred from attending the brief trial in the town of Matanzas, unlike previous cases of dissident trials, Sanchez said.

Jimenez is a former Uncommon Sense Political Prisoner of the Week.

No word whether The Police have gotten word about Jimenez, via a message in a bottle or any other form of communication.

(H/T to Babalú.)