E/CN.4/2000/9/Add.5 page 4 Cuba 6. By letter dated 15 February 2000, the Government responded to various cases that the Special Rapporteur had transmitted to it on 12 October 1999. 7. Concerning Milagros Cruz Cano (see E/CN.4/2000/9, para. 337), the Government reported that he had been arrested for a breach of the peace in Havana on 27 November 1998 and brought before the relevant police examining body by which he was warned and fined. The investigation conducted by the Ministry of the Interior found that he had not been ill-treated. According to available information, he obtained a visa and left for the United States on 19 October 1999. 8. Concerning Lázaro Constantín Durán (ibid., para. 338), the Government stated that he emigrated to the United States in 1980 but was deported since he was considered to be undesirable by the United States emigration authorities. Owing to his anti-social conduct and participation in several breaches of the peace he was sentenced by the Havana municipal court to four years’ imprisonment, which he began serving on 19 December 1998. 9. The Government stated, in connection with Pablo Fidel Cabrera Bishop (ibid., para. 339) who had a criminal record, that in 1994, when trying to leave the country illegally in order to proceed to the United States, he was intercepted and turned back by the United States authorities. He returned on 28 December 1994, and was imprisoned as a fugitive from justice. 10. Concerning Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta (ibid., para. 340), the Government reported that he has been serving a sentence in the Guantánamo provincial prison since October 1997 for the offence of illegal departure from the country, and added that his conduct is bad. 11. Salvador Tamargo Jerez (ibid., para. 342) was, according to the information provided, sentenced on two occasions to imprisonment, which will end in November 2001, for the offences of causing serious injury and breaking out of prison. 12. Concerning Virgen Milagros Grillot and Ernesto Gala García (ibid., paras. 341 and 338), the Government stated that the law enforcement agencies of the Republic of Cuba have no information about these cases. France 13. By letter dated 23 December 1999, the Government replied to the allegations transmitted by the Special Rapporteur on 3 September 1999. 14. Concerning the asylum-seekers who arrived in Nouméa in November 1997 (see E/CN.4/2000/9, para. 443), the Government confirmed that about 70 Chinese whose requests for asylum had been rejected by the authorities had taken refuge on the roofs of the buildings in which they had been housed in March 1998. Armed with knives and iron bars, they threatened to blow the buildings up with gas containers. In the circumstances, and in view of the

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