The 78 Cuban asy­lum seek­ers who were sen­tenced to two days in jail for block­ing free pas­sage­way on the pave­ment out­side the UN Build­ing in Port-of-Spain last week were re­leased yes­ter­day morn­ing. How­ev­er, no one knows of their where­abouts since and the many of Cuban na­tion­als who gath­ered out­side the Unit­ed Na­tions House in Port-of-Spain were not seen there yes­ter­day.

The T&T Guardian was told by prison sources that while at the Gold­en Grove Re­mand Yard, the Cuban na­tion­als min­gled well with the in­mates and even par­tic­i­pat­ed in foot­ball and bas­ket­ball games.

Prison sources al­so said they “re­al eat food…some asked for more…it seemed as though they were starv­ing or some­thing but the in­mates treat­ed them very well.” The Cubans were en­gaged in a protest seek­ing asy­lum in an­oth­er coun­try in front of the UN House when they were ar­rest­ed last week. The group plead­ed not guilty to ob­struct­ing the free pas­sage­way on the pave­ment along Chancery Lane when they first ap­peared be­fore Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trate Sa­nara Toon-Mc-Quilkin.

How­ev­er, when they re-ap­peared, on the ad­vice of their at­tor­neys, they plead­ed guilty to the charge, which car­ries a max­i­mum sen­tence of a $200 fine or up to a month in prison.

In sen­tenc­ing the group of men and women of var­i­ous ages, Toon-Mc­Quilkin con­sid­ered the fact that they were the sec­ond set of asy­lum seek­ers to be ar­rest­ed for such a protest in less than a year.

Toon-Mc­Quilkin set a start­ing point of 12 days in prison, which she re­duced by a third be­cause of the group’s guilty plea.

She al­so de­duct­ed the five days they spent on re­mand and re­duced the sen­tence by a day be­cause of the mit­i­ga­tion plea by the group’s at­tor­neys, who spoke of the hard­ships they en­dured since flee­ing their coun­try due to al­leged po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion.