(P L) Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez today defended his country”s right to grant political asylum to U.S. civil rights fighters, and made it clear that those people will not be returned to the United States.
‘In tune with the national legislation and international law, and Latin America’s tradition, Cuba has granted political asylum or refuge to civil rights fighters from the United States,’ Rodriguez noted at a press conference in this capital today.The head of Cuban diplomacy stressed that none of those refugees will be handed over to U.S. authorities.

‘Certainly, those people will not be returned to the United States, which lacks legal, political and moral foundations to demand their return,’ he stressed.

The foreign minister made it clear that the U.S. citizens who committed crimes in Cuba, like hijacking planes, were sentenced by Cuban courts and served lengthy prison sentences.

According to Rodriguez, over the past few years, the Cuban government has repatriated 12 U.S. fugitive citizens wanted in that country, ‘as a unilateral decision and an act of good will’.

The issue of the U.S. citizens who took asylum in Cuba made headlines last Friday, after President Donald Trump reversed the rapprochement between Washington and Havana that began two years ago, and set the return of those people as one of the conditions to resume bilateral dialogue.