MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Four years in prison for Cuban blind dissident.

Blind Cuban dissident Juan Carlos Gonzalez Leiva was sentenced to four years in prison after having been declared guilty of disrespect for the country's President Fidel Castro who has been in power over forty years.

According to dissident sources in La Havana eight associates were also found guilty but sentenced to lesser prison terms.

Gonzalez Leiva, founder and president of the Cuban Human Rights Foundation, was arrested two years ago in Ciego de Avila, some 285 miles from Havana, and is "the only blind prisoner of conscience in the world," said Elizardo Sanchez, who heads the outlawed Cuban Human Rights Commission.

Mr. Sanchez said that ten men were originally set to face trial, but relatives of the accused who were allowed into the courtroom revealed that during proceedings one of them "admitted" he was an infiltrated state security agent.

Actually Mr. Gonzalez Leiva's four-year prison term was two years less than prosecutors had demanded. Prosecutors charged that Mr. Gonzalez Leiva and the nine other Cuban Human Rights Foundation members had been involved in disrespect for the head of state, disobedience, resisting law enforcement officers and unruly behaviour.

Mr. Sanchez said the trial was originally set for Tuesday but was moved forward a day with no prior notification probably to avoid major international coverage.

Police cordoned off the area around Ciego de Avila's provincial courthouse where the trial was held, and only two relatives of each defendant were allowed inside at any given time, indicated Mr. Sanchez.

The trial was the first against dissidents to be held in Cuba since April 2003 when 75 dissidents and independent journalists were found guilty of undermining the principles of the Cuban Revolution and conspiring with the United States and finally sentenced to prison terms averaging 20 years.

During summary trials, condemned by human rights and countries all over the world, it was a regular procedure for state security agents to reveal they had infiltrated the dissident movement.

"The trial of a blind attorney and other dissidents is clear evidence that political repression persists in Cuba", said the Human Rights Watch organization.

The Cuban dissidents considered counter revolutionary activists and US funded by the Castro regime are small organizations, divided among themselves and virtual unknown for the rest of the Cuban population.