BY WILFREDO CANCIO ISLA
 El Nuevo Herald

 Jesús Yánez Pelletier, a prominent figure in Cuba's human rights movement, died
 of a heart attack Monday in Havana. He was 83.

 Speaking from Havana, Elizardo Sánchez Santacruz, president of the
 Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, remembered Yánez
 as ``a man incapable of nursing hatred or rancor toward his fellow beings.''

 Born in Cárdenas, Yánez began his army career at the age of 25 at the Morro
 Military School in Havana. In 1946, he graduated from the Military Academy and
 was assigned to the Ministry of Justice.

 He achieved national notoriety in 1953 when -- as supervisor of Boniato Prison in
 the province of Oriente -- he publicly denounced a government plot to murder rebel
 leader Fidel Castro, who was being held there after leading a failed raid on the
 Moncada army barracks.

 As a result of his insubordination, he was expelled from the army and fled to the
 United States in 1955.

 Once here, he joined the insurgent July 26 Movement and engaged in the
 purchase of weapons for the revolutionary forces.

 When Castro seized power in 1959, he appointed Yánez as his military aide, with
 the rank of captain. Yánez accompanied Castro during the Cuban leader's travels
 through Latin America and his 1959 trip to the United States but was arrested in
 1960 and charged with treason.

 Sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment, he was released after serving 11 years.
 Upon his release in 1971, he applied for an exit visa but the authorities refused to
 let him leave the country.

 Yánez became active in the human rights movement in the early 1980s and
 became vice president of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights.