§ 2.45 p.m.
§ LORD COLYTONMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government what representations they have made to the Cuban Government concerning the sentence of thirty years' imprisonment recently passed on a British subject, Mr. Robert Morton Geddes.]
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEMy Lords, both the Foreign Secretary and the Lord Privy Seal have made representations to the Cuban authorities about the case of Mr. Geddes. Mr. Geddes was sentenced at a mass trial held on September 22 by a revolutionary tribunal. Of the group of seventy accused of activities described as endangering the security of the State, five were sentenced to death and shot before dawn, most of the remainder receiving 20 or 30 years' imprisonment. Similar revolutionary tribunals are operating daily in Cuba at the present time. They are, however, constituted according to Cuban law. Her Majesty's Government have not concealed from the Cuban Government their views on these proceedings.
§ LORD COLYTONMy Lords, my information is that this is a young British businessman with an American wife who never played any part in politics. I should like to ask my noble friend three questions: first of all, whether Mr. Geddes had the benefit of independent legal advice of any kind; secondly, whether Her Majesty's Government are satisfied that within the type of 347 jurisprudence which we have come to understand exists in Cuba he had a fair trial; and thirdly, whether they will take steps to get some mitigation of this savage sentence. After all, 30 years is a long time in the life of a young man of 28.
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEMy Lords, if I may answer the last question first, my noble friend the Foreign Secretary has, I think, done all he can in the matter of making representations, and the Embassy also will, of course, continue to do all they can for his welfare so long as he remains in custody. With regard to the question of legal representation, he was given an independent defence counsel in the same way as the other prisoners. To what extent such advice is independent may, of course, be a matter of opinion. With regard to the trial, which was my noble friend's other question, I understand that the evidence consisted mainly of statements by the police that Mr. Geddes was guilty; but I think your Lordships are quite familiar with the difference between Communist justice and justice.