Chronicle on Cuba - January 2005

Terrorism

January 6: The US defence department has announced a new investigation into allegations of prisoner abuse at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre. The Pentagon says prisoners are treated humanely, but has promised to investigate all credible allegations of abuse. The new investigation has been ordered by General Bantz Craddock, the head of US southern command which has responsibility for Guantanamo Bay. The inquiry is to be led by US Army Brigadier General John Forlow. (BBCNews, 6/1/05)

January 30: The Cuban wife of Niall Connolly, one of the Colombia Three fugitives, has said that he is not in Cuba and she has not heard from him since he went on the run last month. After the three IRA suspects were sentenced in their absence to 17 years for aiding terrorists from the left-wing FARC group, it was speculated that they might have fled to Cuba, where Connolly had his base as Sinn Fein’s official representative in Latin America. Connolly’s wife Odalys, a doctor, is living at the couple’s home in the beach-front city of Marianao. Asked about Connolly she said: “He is not here, he’s not in Cuba. I can’t give you any news about my husband, because I don’t know anything. I don’t know where he is.” (Times Online, 30/1/05)