Cuban Torture Suspect Released

Wonder where all the MSM outcry and editorials are regarding this story from today's Miami Herald (hat tip daniel):

Cuban torture suspect released from detention

A Cuban national held by federal immigration authorities as a torture suspect has been released. He's the second Cuban suspected of torture released this year.

BY ALFONSO CHARDYachardy@herald.com
A Cuban national detained by immigration officers last year on suspicion of being involved in the torture of Fidel Castro's political foes has been released, but may still face deportation.
Luis Enrique Daniel Rodríguez was freed about two weeks ago from an immigration facility in Bradenton on Florida's Gulf Coast, where he had been held for months, his attorney, Leonardo Viota Sesin, said Sunday.

Daniel Rodríguez is the second Cuban suspected of torture released this year. Jorge de Cárdenas Agostini, detained in June 2004 on suspicion of supervising a team of torturers in Cuba, was released in February from the Krome detention center in West Miami-Dade.

Shortly after, federal officials said de Cárdenas Agostini was put on supervised release because he could not be held indefinitely and they had been unable to persuade Cuba to take him back. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2001 prohibited the indefinite detention of foreign nationals whose countries refused to readmit them.

RULING DECISION
Viota Sesin said he was not sure why his client was freed.

Dean Boyd, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman in Washington, said Daniel Rodríguez was released Aug. 4 because of the Supreme Court ruling.

''Our hands are tied,'' Boyd said, adding that ICE will continue trying to deport Daniel Rodríguez. Until then, he will be required to report periodically to the immigration service.

Cuba generally refuses to take back Cuban exiles ordered deported, although Havana made an exception April 19 when it agreed to take back Juan Emilio Aboy, a Cuban spying suspect.
Daniel Rodríguez was detained July 2, 2004, when immigration officers raided his West Miami-Dade apartment. The detention came after an immigration judge ordered Daniel Rodríguez deported on suspicion of having persecuted dissidents in the early 1990s before he left Cuba for the United States. The Board of Immigration Appeals denied his appeal in December, Viota Sesin said.

UNFAIR CHARGES
Viota Sesin said his client was unfairly accused and that, in reality, he was a defector from Cuba, where he opposed the Castro regime.

''I am convinced that even though he worked for the Cuban apparatus at one time, he was not a torturer,'' Viota Sesin said.

"He may have worked for the Ministry of the Interior, but many other defectors did as well and they are living under the protection of the United States.''

De Cárdenas Agostini was detained June 8, 2004, also on suspicion of being involved in torture, an allegation denied by his attorney, Linda Osberg-Braun.

De Cárdenas Agostini is the nephew of Jorge de Cárdenas Loredo, a longtime lobbyist and political strategist in Miami who was charged with embezzlement, witness tampering and bribery in the 1990s.

De Cárdenas Loredo pleaded guilty in 1997 to one count of obstructing justice and was sentenced to one year in federal prison. After his release, he was sent to Krome to await deportation, but was released in 1999.