Gerardo Hernández Nordelo

He was born into a humble family, the third child and the youngest of Gerardo Hernández Martí —now deceased— and Carmen Nordelo Tejera.

His entire childhood was spent in Víbora, characterized by being very active, studious and diligent.

He completed primary education at the "Cesáreo Fernández" school in Arroyo Naranjo, obtaining different awards in pioneer competition.

In this same capital municipality, he completed seventh and eighth grades at the "Carlos E. Díaz Camacho" basic secondary school, achieving outstanding academic results.

He continued ninth grade at the "Máximo Gómez" basic secondary school, holding different responsibilities and concluding among the top students of his class.

He began his pre-university studies in 1980, holding different positions in the FEEM. He was elected delegate to the municipal plenary of the organization, and in 1980 he was granted the status of aspirant to the Union of Young Communists.

In eleventh grade he was elected member of the Municipal Council of the FEEM and joined the ranks of the UJC, holding the position of general secretary of his base committee in twelfth grade.

He began his university studies in August 1983 at the Higher Institute of International Relations (ISRI) "Raúl Roa García", completing them in 1989 with very good results.

During his university years he was a member of the youth committee of the institute and stood out for his participation in amateur festivals of the FEU as part of the theater group and as a cartoonist-humorist. He was characterized by being an enthusiastic and creative student.

In 1988 he married his current wife, Adriana Pérez O'Connor. He left to fulfill an internationalist mission in the People's Republic of Angola in 1989, being placed in a tank brigade, where he stood out for his courage and decisiveness in 54 combat missions.

In 1990, upon completing his mission, he was decorated with the Internationalist Combatant medals and for Cuba-People's Republic of Angola Friendship.

In 1993 he was granted membership in the Communist Party of Cuba.

In the mid-nineties, he carried out missions in the United States aimed at preventing Cuba from terrorist actions, planned and executed by counterrevolutionary organizations based in Miami.

In that country he worked as a graphic artist. He lived in conditions of austerity, with only essential means and without any luxuries. He was respected by his neighbors in Miami, friends and acquaintances, for his excellent social behavior, which they publicly expressed following his detention.

With high human sensitivity toward all people, a sense of humor that he reflects through his drawings and comic strips and the ability to express his ideas with clarity, all of which made him a beloved and admired companion by those around him.

In 1997 he was elected, in absentia, as an honor delegate to the XIV World Festival of Youth and Students, held in our country, which he appreciated as a very high honor when he was informed of it.

The mother, Carmen Nordelo Tejera, is a Spanish emigrant since 1950, from the Canary Islands, where she was born on February 15, 1933. She is a homemaker and has actively participated in the activities of mass organizations.

She professes extraordinary love for her son Gerardo and is proud that elevated human and revolutionary qualities have developed in him.

Despite the serious suffering caused to her by the death of one of her daughters and the life sentence imposed on Gerardo, she has stoically endured these years, maintaining total discretion and control of her moods, so as not to affect her son's positions.

Gerardo has two sisters: Isabel Hernández Nordelo, born on August 2, 1958, married and a worker at Labiofam, and the other sister, María del Carmen Hernández Nordelo, who died in February 1998 in an air accident along with other managers of the "José Martí" Military Technical Institute. María del Carmen Hernández Nordelo held the rank of lieutenant colonel and was part of the leadership of the Military Technical Institute (ITM). Faced with this fact, which deeply marked Gerardo, and although conditions were created for his travel from the United States to Cuba for the funeral, he decided to remain fulfilling his important missions as a posthumous tribute to his sister.

Since 1989 his wife has been Adriana Pérez O'Connor, a chemical engineering graduate who has held administrative management positions, demonstrating abilities for these tasks. She is currently a specialist at the Institute of Research for the Food Industry on the island.

He is one of the five young revolutionaries who infiltrated counterrevolutionary groups that from Miami organize attacks against the Cuban government.

Gerardo was arrested by the FBI under the charge of espionage. Gerardo's work was to inform the Island's authorities about terrorist activities; and in this way protect the life and property of his compatriots.

He has never intended to act against American national security, he has stated.

In a trial held in the United States on charges presented in May 1999, the charge of conspiracy to murder was presented, based on the alleged relationship of Gerardo Hernández Nordelo with the downing of the small aircraft that violated Cuban airspace in February 1996.

This charge had been a main theme of Miami press campaigns. That second charge consisted of 40 pages with charges to open the proceedings, in an attempt to classify the alleged actions; it was a charge made slowly over 8 months.

In summary, five charges were presented against him:
- Conspiracy, which consists of an agreement to commit a crime against the United States or deceive that country.
- Espionage, that is, collecting information and transmitting it. But in that charge it is taken for granted that it is information concerning the security of the United States or alleged collaboration with a foreign government to the detriment of the United States.
- Conspiracy to commit murder. It is premeditated conspiracy, an agreement to deliberately carry out the death of one or more persons. This is the charge imputed to Gerardo Hernández for the alleged crime of conspiring in the downing of the small aircraft.
- Falsification of documents or making false statements to government authorities to obtain documents.
- Foreign agent, consisting of acting as an agent of a foreign government without being a diplomat or informing the U.S. Attorney General. The way the crime is classified in the American Penal Code, the crime is not in being a foreign agent, but in being a foreign agent without being identified.

A federal court in Florida convicted him on December 14, 2001 and imposed two life sentences plus 15 years imprisonment, charged with penetrating American military facilities, infiltrating anti-Cuban groups based in the city of Miami, and being linked to the downing of small aircraft that violated Cuban airspace in February 1996.

Gerardo Hernández serves his sentence in Victorville prison, California, separated from the rest of his colleagues.

Gerardo Hernández's sentences (2 life sentences plus 15 years) were upheld by the Court of Appeals and consequently excluded from the process in which those of his colleagues were modified. Hernández Nordelo is considered the leader of the five agents of the Cuban Government who were imprisoned in the USA for espionage.

Gerardo was released on December 17, 2014 as part of a humanitarian agreement reached between the governments of the United States and Cuba. The release was announced simultaneously by Cuban President Raúl Castro and American President Barack Obama in separate statements in which the restoration of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States was also announced.

On February 24, 2015 he was decorated with the title of Hero of the Republic of Cuba and the Playa Girón Order. He was elected Deputy on April 18, 2018 to the National Assembly of People's Power for the Cerro municipality for the IX Legislature.

In May 2016, the Hero of the Republic of Cuba and Licentiate in International Relations, Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, was presented as new Vice-Rector of the Higher Institute of International Relations "Raúl Roa García" (ISRI), in charge of university outreach, in a simple act presided over by Chancellor Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla.

In April 2020 he was promoted to National Vice-Coordinator of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR). In September of that same year Gerardo was promoted to the position of National Coordinator of the CDR organization.

In December 2020 at the end of the IX Legislature the National Assembly of People's Power elected Gerardo Hernández Nordelo as a member of the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba.