Published Friday, February 9, 2001, in the
Miami Herald
Cuban revolutionary's grandson seeking asylum in U.S.
By Wilfredo Cancio Isla . El Nuevo Herald
Yotuhel Montané, the 28-year-old grandson of a Cuban revolutionary
leader, said Thursday he is seeking political asylum in the United States.
Montané, who arrived in Miami from Puerto Rico last month, made the
statement on the WQBA-AM (1140) radio program hosted by Ninoska Pérez
Castellón, spokeswoman for the Cuban American National Foundation.
"I broke with all that because I wanted to live in freedom,'' Montané
said, referring to his life in Cuba. "None of the perks I had because I was
a member of my grandfather's family are worth more than the freedom I enjoy
now.''
Montané's grandfather is the late Jesús Montané
Oropesa, a close friend of Fidel Castro since the early days of the revolution.
Known as "Chuchú,'' Jesús Montané was a co-founder of
the 26 of July Movement and sailed with Castro and other rebels from Mexico to
Cuba in 1956 aboard the yacht Granma.
The Sierra Maestra guerrilla campaign in Cuba's highlands began shortly
thereafter.
Jesús Montané's son, Sergio, a member of Cuba's diplomatic
corps, defected in 1994. Now 51, he lives in Miami.
Yotuhel Montané said he worked in Havana as a disc jockey. In 1995,
he left the island legally, he said, and traveled through Colombia, Venezuela,
Ecuador, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, looking for a way to join his father
in the United States.
In Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, where he lived for the past two
years, he set up a nautical goods store as a cover for the use of a boat that
would bring him to South Florida, he said. Two such efforts failed.
But on Jan. 4, he sailed the boat to Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, and flew from
there to Miami, aided by relatives.
As the descendant of a revolutionary figure, he enjoyed many privileges in
his homeland, he said, such as vacations in restricted spas in Varadero and
access to exclusive medical facilities.
But Montané was disenchanted by what he saw as hypocrisy on the part
of the nation's leaders.
"None of them live like the rest of the people,'' he said. "They
live in nice houses, drive fine cars and their refrigerators are full of food.
"They drill it into your head that you're part of a revolution, but you
finally realize that the revolution doesn't exist,'' he said.
Cuba releases ailing exile who tried to trigger revolt
By Elaine De Valle . Edevalle@Herald.Com
A 76-year-old Cuban exile leader, convicted in Cuba of crimes against the
state and sentenced to 15 years in prison, arrived Thursday in Miami with his
daughter, who had traveled to Cuba to get him.
Ernestino Abreu Horta had been in Cuba since May 1998, when he and Vicente
Martínez Rodríguez landed near Pinar del Rio with a cache of
weapons and medicine.
Reached late Thursday night, Alicia Abreu confirmed that her father had been
freed and was staying with her at her home near Kendall. Abreu, 48, said they
had arrived about noon at Miami International Airport and that her father would
see a doctor today about his failing health. She said she could not comment
further.
Sources close to the family said Abreu was released for humanitarian reasons
because of his medical condition, which was not revealed to The Herald on
Thursday night.
"How did this happen? The Cuban government has never done this
before,'' said Antonio Jorge, a professor at Florida International University
and an expert on Cuba. "I never would have expected that, especially in the
case of Ernestino, because he was accused of infiltrating and trying to start a
revolt -- things that Fidel Castro takes very seriously.''
Abreu and Martínez, members of a quasi-commando group known as the
Movement of Revolutionary Recovery, reportedly went to raise a revolt against
Fidel Castro.
They met with two nephews of Martínez's and fled into the mountains
to avoid Castro's troops, but were caught nine days later and had been held in
Cuba ever since. They were tried behind closed doors in September and sentenced
in October to 15 years each.
Their families and the U.S. State Department said last year that the Cuban
government had handed down virtual death sentences because of the men's advanced
ages and failing health. On Thursday, the State Department had no information
about Abreu's release or Martinez's fate.
Abreu is an agronomist and developer who headed the Cuban Patriotic Junta,
an influential exile organization of which the Movement of Revolutionary
Recovery is a branch. He was one of eight exile leaders who met with President
Bill Clinton at the White House in 1996 after the shootdown of two Brothers to
the Rescue planes.
U.S. duo accuses Cuba of ID theft
Castro spies used profiles, court told
By Alfonso Chardy . Achardy@Herald.Com
The Cuban government stole the identities of two South Florida men -- a
truck driver and a valet -- and used them to provide false documents for two
Cubans now on trial as spies, according to court testimony Thursday.
Osvaldo Reyna, a truck driver from Broward, and Daniel Cabrera, a
condominium valet from West Palm Beach, told jurors their U.S. passports and
driver licenses were duplicated and copies assigned to defendants Fernando González
and Gerardo Hernández. The duplication, Reyna and Cabrera testified,
occurred after they submitted their original documents to the Cuban government
to obtain visas to visit Cuba.
While federal investigators had previously acknowledged that some of the
accused Cuban spies on trial used altered or fake documents, it was the first
time the government documented how Havana may have procured those papers.
According to testimony, the method was simple: copying legitimate documents.
What neither prosecution witnesses Reyna and Cabrera nor the prosecutors
explained was how Cuba managed to copy the documents so precisely.
SIMILAR APPEARANCE
The duplicated documents, shown in court, looked like the originals except
that the pictures of Reyna and Cabrera had been replaced by those of González
and Hernández.
Hernández is considered the lead defendant in the trial. He is
accused of being the ringleader among a group of secret agents ostensibly
assigned to infiltrate U.S. military installations and Cuban exile
organizations.
He is also specifically charged with conspiring to help "bring about
the murders'' of four people who died Feb. 24, 1996, when Cuban MiGs shot down
two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft in the Florida Straits.
González is charged with being an unregistered foreign agent, one of
five Cubans allegedly sent to South Florida in the 1990s.
Attorneys for the defendants do not dispute that their clients worked for
the Cuban government. Their defense is that their clients kept an eye on exiles
plotting "terrorist'' attacks against Cuba.
But government prosecutors have said the accused spies had fake documents to
harm U.S. national security.
Reyna, 40, said that in the mid-1990s he supplied his U.S. passport and
Florida driver license to a travel agency in Miami to secure a Cuban visa to
visit his family for the first time since leaving the island in 1980.
After Cuba approved his visa, Reyna said, his documents were returned in an
envelope bearing the name and address of the Cuban Interests Section in
Washington.
Reyna said that on arrival in Havana, a Cuban official awaited him to obtain
additional information.
"He asked me for all the addresses where I had ever lived in the United
States,'' Reyna testified. "He also wanted all telephone numbers, ZIP Codes
and names of family members.''
FAKE STAMPS ENTERED
The duplicated passport contained arrival and departure stamps from Spain,
Jamaica and Venezuela -- countries Reyna said he had never visited.
Cabrera, 39, told a somewhat similar story except that his duplicated
passport was not signed.
In cross-examination, Paul McKenna -- Hernández's lawyer -- got
Cabrera to acknowledge he had no direct knowledge that Hernández had used
the documents.
"I mean, it wasn't even signed,'' McKena said, referring to the
passport that also bore stamps from countries Cabrera said he had never visited.
"No, sir,'' Cabrera said. "No signature on it.''
In other trial developments, McKenna complained to Judge Joan Lenard that
Brothers to the Rescue leader José Basulto, a potential witness, has
violated court orders not to talk to reporters because he gave a news conference
Wednesday.
Basulto, reached by phone, said his news conference was not related to the
trial. He said it was to announce plans to drop leaflets Feb. 24 over the
Florida Straits to mark the anniversary of the 1996 shootdown.
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald | 