PUBLIC TRIALS IN HAVANA

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28801, 23 January 1959, Page 9

PUBLIC TRIALS IN HAVANA

Sports Stadium As Court

HAVANA, January 22. The "war crimes” trials of defeated foes of Fidel Castro, endorsed by the cheers of more than 500,000 Cabans at yesterday’s vast maa meeting tn Havana, befin today in Havana’s 15,000seat Sports Palace stadium. In six provincial cities, firing •quads awaited 42 alreadycondemned men in a nation-wide campaign which Castro says will mean death for about 400 supporters of the ousted former President, Fulgencio Batista. Thg author of Cuba’s new criminal code, the Agriculture Minister (Mr Humberto Sori Marin), will prosecute the first three defendants to be tried— Army ,Officers. charged iyith (he torture dr murder of more than 200 persons. Castro, after repeatedly denouncing the United States Congressmen and journalists who had criticised Cuba’s mass executions, told yesterday's meeting that the number of ‘‘war criminals” his men expect to kill amount to only about one for every 1000 persons killed by American A-bombs in Japan. The remark drew a wild ovation from the crowd. In his speech, Castro cited the example set by the United State; and its allies in the war crimes trials at Nuremberg as justification for Cuba’s mass executions The Havana trials are being conducted in the full glared of global publicity Four hundred reporters from 22 countries are in Havana spotlighting the trials ■nd executions in an unparalleled manner and without censorship Havana, meanwhile, is slowly recovering some of its traditional gaiety. An indication was yesterday’s mass meeting at the Presidential palace when the enormous crowd waved banners, sang the national anthem and shouted “viva Fidel” at the top of their lungs to honour their bearded hero. The “Chicago Tribune” reported today that among the first Cubans to go on trial today would be Colonel Jesus Sosa Blanco, who was quoted as having boasted in his prison cell that he had killed 108 people. The newspaper’s veteran Latin - American correspondent, Jules Dubois, said in a Havana dispatch that Sosa Blanco and two Other Army officers on trial were accused of having murdered civilians in Oriente province, seat of the revolutionary forces of Fidel Castro, before whose advance President Batista fled on New Year’s Day.