ACCUSED CUBAN TORTURER, 79, DIES MEDEROS DIDN'T GO TO JAIL AFTER TRIAL
By Charles Rabin
The Miami Herald
La Nueva Cuba
Agosto 25, 2002
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Accused Cuban
torturer Eriberto Mederos died of prostate cancer Friday
morning in a
Catholic hospice as a court hearing was underway to determine
when the former
psychiatric nurse was to report to prison.
Earlier this month,
he was found guilty by a federal jury in Miami of lying
about torturing
Cuban dissidents on his application to become a U.S. citizen.
The 79-year-old
never spent a day behind bars after his conviction.
Five minutes into
the 10:30 a.m. hearing, Mederos' attorney, David Rothman,
approached the
bench and informed U.S. District Judge Alan S. Gold that
Mederos had died.
''We realized there
was no point in going forward. So we recessed,'' said
Assistant U.S.
Attorney Frank Tamen, who successfully prosecuted Mederos
earlier this month.
Experts hailed
Mederos' Aug. 1 conviction as a historic decision, saying it
was the first time
an accused torturer had been convicted on criminal charges
in the United
States. After World War II, Nazi war criminals had been held
accountable, but
only in civil proceedings here.
The jury found
Mederos obtained his U.S. citizenship in 1993 by illegally
concealing his
membership in the Communist Party in Cuba and his role in
electroshocking
political prisoners at the Mazorra psychiatric hospital in
Havana.
Gold's courtroom
deputy Jacob Hasbun said the government filed a written
motion in court
Aug. 14 to revoke Mederos' citizenship. That motion is still
pending since
Mederos' attorney Rothman has yet to file a response.
But the prosecution
is unlikely to follow through with the motion. Tamen
called it a moot
point.
Rothman did not
return several phone calls. Several calls to Mederos' family
members were also
not returned. It is unclear where he will be buried, or
when a funeral will
be held.
The relatives of
one of Mederos' victims, Regina de Sosa Fonts and her
husband, Carlos
Fonts, say they still want Mederos to lose his citizenship,
even after death.
Regina de Sosa
Fonts' father Eugenio de Sosa Chabau -- a one-time prep school
classmate of
President John F. Kennedy -- is largely credited with launching
the case after a
chance meeting with Mederos at a Hialeah nursing center in
the early 1990s.
De Sosa Chabau said
he was a victim of Mederos in Mazorra in the late 1960s.
He died of cancer
in January at age 85, unable to witness Mederos'
conviction.
Regina, 60, and her
husband were at the hearing Friday when the judge told
the courtroom of
Mederos' death.
''It's hard to
describe the feeling,'' Regina said. ``To me, Mederos died the
other day when he
was convicted. Justice was done. This is not a matter of
vengeance.''
Belkis Ferro, 47,
of Perrine, is another victim who testified she was
tortured by Mederos
after destroying government tobacco plants at a
government farm in
Mazorra when she was 16. She said she never believed
Mederos was sick.
''I didn't expect
this,'' she said. ``But he will have to answer to God
now.''
Mederos admitted
during the trial that he administered electroshock treatment
to patients, but
only under doctor's orders.
The claim
contrasted sharply testimony from seven former political prisoners
who said at the
trial that Mederos shocked their temples and testicles while
they were held down
on concrete floors filled with feces and urine.
During the trial,
Tamen called Mederos an evil servant of communist tyranny
who terrified
inmates from 1968 to 1978. Mederos began working at Mazorra
hospital in the
1940s.
Rothman conceded the conditions at the hospital were horrifying.
But he claimed Mederos was merely following medical orders.
After his
conviction, Gold ordered Mederos to report to jail the next day.
But the judge,
aware of Mederos' illness, extended that deadline at least
three times. He was
to be sentenced Oct. 16.