Frances Robles. frobles@herald.com. Published Wednesday, May 10, 2000, in the Miami Herald
WASHINGTON -- At least three Cuban diplomats have been identified in police photo lineups as being among the dozen men who attacked a group of protesters outside the Cuban Interests Section last month.
The identifications could lead to the envoys' eventual deportation.
Washington, D.C., Police opened a misdemeanor simple assault case after the April 14 incident in which 11 victims, an eyewitness and Secret Service police say several men opened the Cuban Interests Section gates and attacked demonstrators standing on the sidewalk. No one was seriously hurt, and
no one was arrested.
``I'm getting beat up, and nobody is doing anything about it,'' said Estrella C. Noda, a domestic violence counselor who moved to Washington from Key West last year. ``I think one day you'll turn on the TV, the kid will have been sent home, and nobody will give a damn. I just want someone in
authority to say, `Yes, this is what happened. These people told the truth.' ''
The U.S. State Department gave police photographs of the two dozen employees assigned to the Cuban Interests Section, the island's diplomatic mission. A detective who works the overnight shift showed photographs to the bulk of the protesters who said they were punched, hit with flag poles and
tossed to the street.
At least four victims identified Cuban employees, the victims said.
``I identified one guy,'' Noda said. ``I singled out two for sure,'' said one protester who feared reprisals if his name were published. ``There were others I had a good feeling about.''
Federal sources told The Herald that detectives are also examining a surveillance video taken by a U.S. government agency. The video, sources said, did not capture the fracas but is being used to help determine who's who.
A friend of one of the suspects told The Herald that the Cuban government sent three diplomats home Sunday because of the incident.
The source said First Secretary Fernando Perez Maza told him he and two underlings were booted out of their assignments here because their government did not wish to battle the United States over the incident.
State Department officials said they had no information on departing diplomats but that the Cuban mission still has 30 days to notify that they had left.
Cuban Interests Section spokesman Luis Fernandez denied that anyone had been reassigned, and said he's heard nothing about the police probe.
``All the chicks are with their hen,'' Fernandez said, using a common Cuban expression.
Fernandez said protesters provoked the attack by insulting the mission's women and children, a charge they deny. The Cubans say several staffers were trying to make their way past the protesters, who heckled them and tossed objects through the Interests Section gates.
Even Perez Maza's friend acknowledged that the Interests Section employees charged at the heckling protesters, but stressed that no one was hurt.
The uniform Secret Service officer assigned to keep an eye on the protest that night filed a report backing the protesters' account.
``The Cuban first secretary was interviewed and refused to provide a list of names of possible suspects,'' agent Matthew Schaeffer wrote.
State Department officials said they are waiting for the D.C. Police's investigative report. Once completed, the State Department will ask local prosecutors whether the incident would normally have resulted in arrest, had it not involved people protected by diplomatic immunity.
If the suspects cannot be criminally charged, the State Department would then ask Cuba to waive immunity.
If they refuse -- as they did in 1995 after an identical incident in New York -- the diplomat would be kicked out of the country and listed in an INS ``look-out book.'' Two Cubans were expelled after the 1995 brawl.
``The Cubans have yet to explain themselves on this,'' one State Department official said.
``We have asked on a number of occasions and they have yet to give us a satisfactory answer on their version of events.''
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