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Cuba Executes Three Charged in Ferry Hijacking
Cuba Executes Men Charged in Hijacking
1 hour, 57 minutes ago
HAVANA - Three men charged with terrorism
for hijacking a passenger ferry last week were executed Friday after summary trials, the government reported.
The men were prosecuted Tuesday in summary trials for "very grave acts of terrorism" and given several days to appeal their sentences, according to a statement read on state television.
However, the sentences were upheld both by Cuba's Supreme Tribunal and the ruling Council of State, and were carried out at dawn Friday, the statement said.
Capital punishment in Cuba is always carried out by firing squad. It has been used sparingly in recent years.
Another four men received life sentences, it said.
No one was hurt when the group, reportedly armed with at least one pistol and several knives, seized the ferry and its 50 passengers in Havana Bay early April 2 and ordered the captain to sail to the United States.
Later that day, the 45-foot ferry Baragua ran out of fuel in the high seas of the Florida Straits, and officers on two Cuban Coast Guard patrol boats that chased them there tried to persuade the hijackers to return to the island.
The hijackers allegedly threatened to throw passengers from the boxy, flat-bottomed boat overboard but soon agreed to let the ferry be towed 30 miles back to Cuba's Mariel port for refueling.
After the boat was docked in Mariel, west of Havana, Cuban authorities eventually gained control of the ferry April 3 and arrested the suspects after a quick-thinking French woman hostage jumped into the water to confuse her captors.
The standoff ended with all the hostages, then the suspects, jumping into the water.
The Baragua was hijacked a day after a Cuban passenger plane was hijacked to Key West, Fla., by a man who allegedly threatened to blow up the aircraft with two grenades. The grenades turned out to be fake.
Ten of the Cubans aboard that flight opted to remain in the United States and 19 others asked to go home.
Another Cuban plane was hijacked to Key West less than two weeks earlier.
The hijackings coincided with a crackdown on dissidents in Cuba and rising tensions with the United States.
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Cuba Sentences Last of 75 Dissidents
Fri Apr 11, 2:10 AM ET
By ANITA SNOW, Associated Press Writer
HAVANA - The last jail sentences in a crackdown on Cuba's opposition were announced as Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) condemned the campaign as "despicable repression."
The series of trials — none of them lasting more than a day — has been criticized by governments and human rights groups around the world. Cuba's government has said the trials are necessary to save its socialist system from increased hostility from Washington.
The 75 dissidents have received sentences of up to 28 years.
"There has never been anything similar to this in the history of Cuba," said Elizardo Sanchez, whose Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation has monitored the arrests and trials.
Powell called the trials "the most significant act of political repression in decades" and said the United States would ask the Human Rights Commission in Geneva to condemn Fidel Castro (news - web sites)'s government.
"We call on Castro to end this despicable repression and free these prisoners of conscience," he said in a written statement Thursday. "The United States and the international community will be unrelenting in our insistence that Cubans who seek peaceful change be permitted to do so."
Cuba also has faced criticism for the speed of the prosecutions with opponents saying they were carried out when the world's attention was focused on the Iraq (news - web sites) war. But Cuba has denied the charges, saying the arrests came before the start of the fighting.
The four sentences announced Thursday included a 25-year term for dissident physician Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet.
The defendants were accused of receiving money from the U.S. government and working with Washington to undermine the socialist regime.
Tensions between Havana and Washington have increased since U.S. Interests Section Chief James Cason, the top U.S. diplomat in Havana, began assuming a higher profile in his support of the opposition.
Cason denies accusations that the U.S. Interests Section had dissidents on the payroll, saying the mission operates no differently than American embassies in other countries.
Cuban opposition leaders on Thursday urged a further international censure of Fidel Castro's government.
"We call on all democratic governments and organizations of the world — that have not done so already — so to openly reject this wave of repression," read a letter signed by five leaders of the local opposition.
"We direct this call in particular to our brother countries in Latin America, which up to now have not spoken out in this needed censure of the only totalitarian regime" in the region.
Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque defended the quick trials and heavy sentences. "There has been an obsession by the governments of the United States to fabricate an opposition in Cuba, to create a fifth column," he said Wednesday.
Perez Roque also read from a letter written by President Bush (news - web sites) to Biscet, congratulating the doctor — who was sentenced Thursday — for winning the Democracy's People Award from the International Republican Institute in February.
"I find this letter very strange," Perez Roque said, adding that Bush had never written a letter to well-known government doctors and researchers who have developed vaccines against illnesses such as meningitis.
The foreign minister said the dissidents were not charged with criticizing the government, but for receiving American government funds and collaborating with U.S. diplomats.
Perez Roque presented letters and detailed lists of payments he said proved the defendants were getting money from the U.S. government.
For instance, Perez Roque said that in the home of independent journalist Oscar Espinosa Chepe, investigators found evidence that over one year he received $7,154 — a huge sum in a country where an average government salary is $25 a month. A wad of $13,000 in cash allegedly was found stashed in the lining of a jacket.
Espinosa Chepe, who wrote about the Cuban economy for Web sites in Miami, was sentenced to 20 years.
The U.S. Agency for International Development has given more than $20 million since 1997 to non-governmental groups in the United States to support Cuban's opposition movement and promote democracy, human rights and free enterprise on the communist island.
Dissidents who escaped the crackdown vowed to continue their efforts to bring greater freedoms to Cuba.
"This is not the end of the peaceful opposition," said pro-democracy activist Oswaldo Paya.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Observation:
All you communist-wannabes are free to leave the States at your earliest convenience.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
1 hour, 57 minutes ago
HAVANA - Three men charged with terrorism
for hijacking a passenger ferry last week were executed Friday after summary trials, the government reported. The men were prosecuted Tuesday in summary trials for "very grave acts of terrorism" and given several days to appeal their sentences, according to a statement read on state television.
However, the sentences were upheld both by Cuba's Supreme Tribunal and the ruling Council of State, and were carried out at dawn Friday, the statement said.
Capital punishment in Cuba is always carried out by firing squad. It has been used sparingly in recent years.
Another four men received life sentences, it said.
No one was hurt when the group, reportedly armed with at least one pistol and several knives, seized the ferry and its 50 passengers in Havana Bay early April 2 and ordered the captain to sail to the United States.
Later that day, the 45-foot ferry Baragua ran out of fuel in the high seas of the Florida Straits, and officers on two Cuban Coast Guard patrol boats that chased them there tried to persuade the hijackers to return to the island.
The hijackers allegedly threatened to throw passengers from the boxy, flat-bottomed boat overboard but soon agreed to let the ferry be towed 30 miles back to Cuba's Mariel port for refueling.
After the boat was docked in Mariel, west of Havana, Cuban authorities eventually gained control of the ferry April 3 and arrested the suspects after a quick-thinking French woman hostage jumped into the water to confuse her captors.
The standoff ended with all the hostages, then the suspects, jumping into the water.
The Baragua was hijacked a day after a Cuban passenger plane was hijacked to Key West, Fla., by a man who allegedly threatened to blow up the aircraft with two grenades. The grenades turned out to be fake.
Ten of the Cubans aboard that flight opted to remain in the United States and 19 others asked to go home.
Another Cuban plane was hijacked to Key West less than two weeks earlier.
The hijackings coincided with a crackdown on dissidents in Cuba and rising tensions with the United States.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Cuba Sentences Last of 75 Dissidents
Fri Apr 11, 2:10 AM ET
By ANITA SNOW, Associated Press Writer
HAVANA - The last jail sentences in a crackdown on Cuba's opposition were announced as Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) condemned the campaign as "despicable repression."
The series of trials — none of them lasting more than a day — has been criticized by governments and human rights groups around the world. Cuba's government has said the trials are necessary to save its socialist system from increased hostility from Washington.
The 75 dissidents have received sentences of up to 28 years.
"There has never been anything similar to this in the history of Cuba," said Elizardo Sanchez, whose Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation has monitored the arrests and trials.
Powell called the trials "the most significant act of political repression in decades" and said the United States would ask the Human Rights Commission in Geneva to condemn Fidel Castro (news - web sites)'s government.
"We call on Castro to end this despicable repression and free these prisoners of conscience," he said in a written statement Thursday. "The United States and the international community will be unrelenting in our insistence that Cubans who seek peaceful change be permitted to do so."
Cuba also has faced criticism for the speed of the prosecutions with opponents saying they were carried out when the world's attention was focused on the Iraq (news - web sites) war. But Cuba has denied the charges, saying the arrests came before the start of the fighting.
The four sentences announced Thursday included a 25-year term for dissident physician Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet.
The defendants were accused of receiving money from the U.S. government and working with Washington to undermine the socialist regime.
Tensions between Havana and Washington have increased since U.S. Interests Section Chief James Cason, the top U.S. diplomat in Havana, began assuming a higher profile in his support of the opposition.
Cason denies accusations that the U.S. Interests Section had dissidents on the payroll, saying the mission operates no differently than American embassies in other countries.
Cuban opposition leaders on Thursday urged a further international censure of Fidel Castro's government.
"We call on all democratic governments and organizations of the world — that have not done so already — so to openly reject this wave of repression," read a letter signed by five leaders of the local opposition.
"We direct this call in particular to our brother countries in Latin America, which up to now have not spoken out in this needed censure of the only totalitarian regime" in the region.
Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque defended the quick trials and heavy sentences. "There has been an obsession by the governments of the United States to fabricate an opposition in Cuba, to create a fifth column," he said Wednesday.
Perez Roque also read from a letter written by President Bush (news - web sites) to Biscet, congratulating the doctor — who was sentenced Thursday — for winning the Democracy's People Award from the International Republican Institute in February.
"I find this letter very strange," Perez Roque said, adding that Bush had never written a letter to well-known government doctors and researchers who have developed vaccines against illnesses such as meningitis.
The foreign minister said the dissidents were not charged with criticizing the government, but for receiving American government funds and collaborating with U.S. diplomats.
Perez Roque presented letters and detailed lists of payments he said proved the defendants were getting money from the U.S. government.
For instance, Perez Roque said that in the home of independent journalist Oscar Espinosa Chepe, investigators found evidence that over one year he received $7,154 — a huge sum in a country where an average government salary is $25 a month. A wad of $13,000 in cash allegedly was found stashed in the lining of a jacket.
Espinosa Chepe, who wrote about the Cuban economy for Web sites in Miami, was sentenced to 20 years.
The U.S. Agency for International Development has given more than $20 million since 1997 to non-governmental groups in the United States to support Cuban's opposition movement and promote democracy, human rights and free enterprise on the communist island.
Dissidents who escaped the crackdown vowed to continue their efforts to bring greater freedoms to Cuba.
"This is not the end of the peaceful opposition," said pro-democracy activist Oswaldo Paya.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Observation:
All you communist-wannabes are free to leave the States at your earliest convenience.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
They can even disagree with yours. 
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