CUBANET ... CUBANEWS

December 5, 2002



Cuba News / The Miami Herald

Posted on Thu, Dec. 05, 2002 in The Miami Herald.

Judge: Biplane used to flee Cuba can be sold at auction

By Luisa Yanez, lyanez@herald.com.

A Miami-Dade circuit judge on Wednesday cleared the way for a public auction of a Cuban-owned cargo biplane flown to Key West last month by a group of migrants.

''Proceed with the sale,'' Circuit Judge Alan Postman told Mark Willis, counsel for the Monroe County Sheriff's Office, via a conference-call hearing.

Postman said that any money from the sale of the yellow Russian-made Antonov-2 will go toward satisfying a $27 million judgment against the Cuban government that he awarded to Ana Margarita Martinez, a Miami woman who had a sham marriage orchestrated by Cuban spy Juan Pablo Roque.

The plane will be sold at a sheriff's auction scheduled for 11 a.m. Jan. 8 at Key West International Airport.

The Antonov-2, rigged for crop-dusting and hauling cargo and passengers, is popular with collectors in the United States.

It could net as much as $40,000 at auction, according to Internet websites.

The victory for Martinez might be more symbolic than a financial windfall.

Luís Fernandez, spokesman for the interest section, said he had no comments on the judge's decision.

The plane's road to the selling block began after the eight migrants landed in Key West on Nov. 11.

Martinez and her attorneys appealed to a Miami-Dade court to allow them to confiscate the biplane and sell it.

The biplane has been under 24-hour watch at the airport since its arrival. The cost of guarding the plane is $960 a day.

It's unclear if Key West airport officials will seek compensation.

The Cuban government had demanded the return of the plane and the migrants, who have been paroled into the community by immigration officials.

Monroe officials had expressed concerns about the sale after the Department of the Treasury warmed them they might be in violation of federal law by selling the plane, Willis told the judge.

The government said such a sale would be constituted as ''trading with the enemy,'' Willis told the judge.

At the hearing, Willis said those concerns no longer exist after the signing last week by President Bush of the Terrorism Insurance Act, which among its many provisions allows individuals to attach money from unfriendly foreign sovereignties.

Herald staff writer Jennifer Babson contributed to this report.

Exile support for Cuban democracy move rises

By Andrea Elliott. Aelliott@Herald.Com.

Support for the Varela Project, a dissident movement for democracy in Cuba, has risen sharply among Cuban exiles since Jimmy Carter visited Cuba this year and a Cuban dissident leader won a prestigious human rights award, according to a poll.

Sixty-eight percent of those polled now support the movement, compared with 51 percent in April, according to the poll to be released today by the Cuba Study Group, a Miami-based Castro opposition group that supports the project.

''I think people have a greater understanding of the Varela Project because people in the exile community are looking at it with favor,'' said Joe Garcia, executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation.

The Varela Project is a referendum initiative seeking a democratic shift in Cuba, including the right to free speech and the freeing of all political prisoners. Leaders submitted 11,000 signatures to the Cuban legislative assembly in May -- a move permitted by the country's constitution -- but it has been ignored.

Opponents argue that the project legitimizes President Fidel Castro's regime by working within its framework.

''It's a recognition of the Cuban communist government. It's for that reason we are against it,'' said Diego Suárez, founder of the Cuban Liberty Council, another opposition group. "We don't support it, but we don't fight it. We feel it is not the way to go.''

Still, opposition to the Varela Project among exiles dropped from 29 percent in April to 9 percent in November. That may be due to increased media coverage, said Carlos Saladrigas, chairman of the Cuban Study Group.

Former President Carter's visit to Havana in May gave the Varela Project international attention, as did international recognition of dissident leader Oswaldo Payá.

Pollster Sergio Bendixen surveyed 451 Cuban Americans in Broward and Miami-Dade counties for the November poll. The previous poll, in April, sampled 800 Cuban Americans.

Cuban attorney general defends island's use of death penalty

Andrea Rodriguez. Associated Press. Posted on Mon, Dec. 02, 2002

HAVANA - Cuba's top prosecutor on Monday defended the island's continued use of the death penalty as a deterrent to atrocious common crimes, but noted that the measure is used selectively.

Although there have been no executions in Cuba in more than two years, "there is no modification from a legislative point of view," Attorney General Juan Escalona told reporters.

Cuba, along with the United States, is among few countries in the Western Hemisphere that apply the death penalty. The European Union has called on Cuba to remove capital punishment from its penal code.

In a rare public reference to a multiple homicide that occurred a year ago, Escalona said prosecutors sought the death penalty for those convicted of slaying five people - four from the same family - during a highway robbery in central Cuba.

Among those killed were a couple living in South Florida and their young grandson. The crime was especially shocking in communist Cuba, where such multiple slayings are extremely rare.

The attorney general said that the death penalty was also being sought in the slaying of five members of the same family on a ranch outside Havana in August.

Along with especially grievous common crimes, Cuba maintains the death penalty for crimes against state security, Escalona said.

Two Salvadorans were sentenced to death for such crimes in 1999 in a string of bombings at Cuban tourist locales, but their executions have been delayed pending appeals.

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