Spain releases names of 7 released Cuban political prisoners due to arrive in Madrid

Spain releases names of Cuban prisoners

MADRID — Spain released the names of seven Cuban political prisoners who are being flown to Madrid on Tuesday with their families.

The Foreign Ministry said that six former inmates — Lester Gonzalez, Omar Ruiz, Antonio Villarreal, Julio Cesar Galvez, Jose Luis Garcia Paneque and Pablo Pacheco — were aboard an Air Europa flight that arrived at 12:49 p.m. (1049 GMT, 7:49 a.m. EDT) at Barajas airport.

A seventh released prisoner, identified as Ricardo Gonzalez Alfonso, was to arrive on an Iberia flight around 2 p.m. (1200 GMT, 8 a.m. EDT).

The seven will come through arrivals together after the second plane lands. It was not immediately known if they would speak to the media.

Cuba freed the seven Monday and sent them and their families to exile in Spain — the start of a promised mass liberation of dissidents that once seemed unthinkable.

“They have come from jail to the plane. I feel a mix of joy and pain because to live in freedom one must leave the country,” said Blanca Reyes, representative in Madrid for the Cuban dissident group Ladies in White.

One of the released, Omar Ruiz, who had been serving a 12-year sentence for treason, told The Associated Press on Monday he and six other former inmates were driven in a van to Havana’s Jose Marti International airport, where they were reunited with relatives in a special waiting room. All were then escorted to an Air Europa flight bound for Madrid.

He said Cuban officials were watching them.

“That’s why I won’t consider myself free until I arrive in Spain,” he said.

The government of Raul Castro has pledged to free 52 Cubans who international human rights group say were jailed for their political beliefs. That process is expected to take three or four months and is part of a landmark deal last week between Cuban authorities and the island’s Roman Catholic Church that was brokered by Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.

Spanish authorities have said that once the Cubans arrive, they will not be required to stay in Spain and will be free to head elsewhere.

The church says another 13 opposition activists and dissidents behind bars will go free soon. It was not known if subsequently released prisoners will be allowed to stay in Cuba or will be forced to go to another country. Both the U.S. and Chile have offered to grant them asylum, in addition to Spain.

Associated Press writers Will Weissert and Andrea Rodriguez in Havana and Ciaran Giles in Madrid contributed to this report.