A federal appeals court has upheld the conviction of the Cuban Five but vacated the sentences of three of the men. The five Cuban nationals were arrested in 1998 and convicted of spying for the Cuban government. They maintain they were sent to the United States to monitor violent exile groups plotting to overthrow Fidel Castro. On Wednesday, the judges vacated the life terms of two of the men and the nineteen-year sentence of another, after concluding that their sentences were improperly configured because no “top secret information was gathered or transmitted.” The National Committee to Free the Cuban Five denounced the decision to uphold the convictions. Gloria La Riva said, “The five men are not guilty of any crime. They were saving lives by stopping terrorism. They never had weapons. They never posed any harm to the people of the United States.”