Yahoo! News
December 19, 2001.
Five People Slain in Central Cuba
By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer
HAVANA, 18 (AP) - Attackers killed a Florida couple, their 8-year-old
grandson and two others during a robbery on a central Cuban highway, official
sources and family members said Tuesday.
Four were identified as members of the same family and the fifth as a family
friend who was driving the car. Family members and a morgue employee said the
victims were shot to death.
Multiple killings are almost unheard of, and slayings of visitors to the
communist country - whose economy depends heavily on foreign tourism - are
extremely rare.
Osmani Placencia of Hialeah, Fla., identified the dead as his parents, Ada
Lorenzo, 52, and Celedonio Placencia, 62, both Cuba natives with legal U.S.
residency; his son, Daniel Osmani Placencia, 8, of Cuba; his sister, Yailen
Placencia, 28, of Cuba; and Domingo Delgado, a family friend who was driving.
The couple flew to Cuba on Sunday to deliver medicine and supplies to sick
relatives in Santa Clara.
Cuba's official media reported nothing about the killings and there was no
comment Tuesday from official government spokesmen.
But several government sources privately confirmed the five were slain in an
apparent robbery attempt in Matanzas province while driving east from Havana to
visit relatives in Santa Clara, in Las Villas province. It wasn't immediately
clear if the killings occurred Sunday or Monday.
A woman reached later at the forensic services office - the morgue - in
Matanzas said the victims had been shot. The woman also refused to give her
name.
Most Cubans are not allowed to carry firearms, which are restricted to
police and the military. However, criminals have been known to obtain firearms
on the black market.
"It wasn't an accident,'' Placencia told Spanish language television in
Miami. "They robbed them and then they killed them.''
Family and friends of the victims, gathered in Florida Tuesday to mourn and
remembered their loved ones.
Yisel Placencia, the couple's daughter, broke down as she looked at
photographs of the victims. One showed her sister Yailen smiling as she hugged
their parents. Another showed Daniel happily playing in front of his Santa Clara
home.
Jorge Lorenzo, Ada Lorenzo's brother, said family members had no plans to go
to Cuba and that Cuban authorities assured them they were working "night
and day'' on the case.
Cuban exile groups in Miami who oppose leader Fidel Castro (news - web
sites) said the killings show the Caribbean island is dangerous.
The bodies were retrieved by a relative early Tuesday from the Matanzas
morgue and taken to a funeral home in Santa Clara.
Officials at the U.S. Interests Section, the American mission here, said
they had no information about the case but would not be contacted if no American
citizens were involved.
The last known killing of a visitor to Cuba was in May, when a former Roman
Catholic priest from the United States was strangled at a Havana home where he
was staying. Cuban officials never commented publicly on the case and the cause
of death was never given.
AP Corrects Cuba US Food Story
HAVANA, 18 (AP) -- In a Dec. 16 story about the first direct commerical
sales of American food to Cuba in nearly four decades, The Associated Press
reported that a U.S. law passed last year permitted such sales for humanitarian
purposes.
The law does not require that the food be used for humanitarian purposes. It
may be used for any purpose, including commercial resale.
South Florida Family Loses Four Relatives In Cuba
Miami Herald | WPLG Click10.com. Tuesday December 18
03:22 PM EST
A Hialeah Gardens family is desperate for news after they received word that
four of their relatives were killed in Cuba.
"I lost four members of my family at the same time. It's not easy,"
Osmani Placencia said.
The four were on a trip in Cuba to visit a sick relative. Placencia said
that the last time he saw his parents was Sunday night when he dropped them off
at the airport. The couple was greeted in Cuba by Placencia's 8-year-old son
(pictured, below left), his sister and a family friend.
When the five didn't arrive at another relatives house in Cuba, family
members set out looking for them. They found all five dead on the side of the
road, apparent victims of robbery and murder, according to the family.
"Exactly I don't know what happened. Just what we know is that somebody
killed them," Placencia said.
"Why kill the people for clothes, for money, for jewels? I don't know.
I don't understand," Yisel Placencia, a daughter of two of the victims,
said.
The Placencias suspect robbery because their father was carrying medicine,
clothes and money to share with relatives.
Cuban authorities would only confirm that the bodies of the family members
are in a Cuban hospital.
Cuban Agent Sentenced to 19 Years
MIAMI, 18 (AP) - A Cuban spy who operated in the United States off and on
for at least five years was sentenced Tuesday to 19 years in prison.
Fernando Gonzalez, 38, was convicted along with four others in June as part
of a network that tried to infiltrate U.S. military bases and Cuban exile
groups.
Like those sentenced before him, Gonzalez justified his work as an effort to
stop terrorism in Cuba by exiles living in Miami.
"The truth is that Cuba has no other choice but to keep people here,''
he said. "I sincerely trust that someday Cuba will have no further need for
people like me.''
Two members of the spy ring were sentenced to life in prison last week, a
third faces the same punishment next week, and a fourth received 15 years. | 
