Cuba said Wednesday it has filed terrorism charges against six suspects it claims were aboard a Florida-flagged speedboat that is alleged to have opened fire on soldiers in waters off the island’s north coast.
The Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement that the suspects of Cuban origin remain in pretrial detention, adding that it will ensure “due process” as it continues to act “in defense of our people and the country’s institutions.”
The government has said 10 heavily armed Cubans from the U.S. who were on board the boat opened fire as they tried to infiltrate the island to commit acts of terrorism. It said that Cuban soldiers returned fire, killing four suspects.
However, the White House confirmed to CBS News last week that at least one American was one of the four people killed. The news was first reported by Axios.
In addition to the American citizen who was killed, a U.S. official confirmed to CBS News that at least one U.S. citizen was also among those arrested. At least one of the boat’s occupants had a K-1 visa, the official said, which allows a citizen’s fiancé to travel to the U.S. to get married, and others are believed to be legal permanent residents of the U.S., although it was not clear how many.
According to the official and an incident report from the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office in Florida, the boat’s owner alleged that the vessel had been stolen by an employee.
The Cuban government unveiled items said to have been found on the boat, including a dozen high-powered weapons, more than 12,800 pieces of ammunition and 11 pistols.
AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa
Chief prosecutor Edward Robert Campbell has told The Associated Press that terrorism charges carry a possible sentence of up to 30 years in prison or even the death penalty, although Cuba has maintained a moratorium on the latter since 2003.
The brother of one of the men who was killed in the incident said his sibling was fixated on overthrowing Cuba’s government.
Misael Ortega Casanova, brother of Michael Ortega Casanova, told the AP that his brother had fallen into an “obsessive and diabolical” quest to free Cuba from its communist government. Cubans in the United States and Cuban Americans have long protested the current Cuban government, and accused the island’s leadership of human rights violations.
“They became so obsessed that they didn’t think about the consequences nor their own lives,” Casanova said of his brother and the other men who were aboard the boat.
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