Published in the Miami
Herald
People on run finding selves at home abroad with Castro
Paul Brinkley-Rogers . pbrinkley-rogers@herald.com.
Published Saturday, March 10, 2001, in the Miami Herald
U.S. authorities seeking to arrest a Key Largo woman on kidnapping charges
for taking her son to Cuba would be making history if they persuade Havana to
send her back for prosecution.
Cuba has never returned any of the 77 federal fugitives the FBI says are
enjoying Fidel Castro's protection despite demands from Congress that go back 30
years. Giving political asylum to Arletis Blanco, the Key Largo woman, or to
black radicals such as convicted murderer Joanne Chesimard -- better known to
her supporters in the United States as Assata Shakur -- gives Cuba yet another
opportunity to thumb its nose at Washington, U.S. officials say.
Blanco fled to Cuba in November with her 5-year-old, U.S.-born son and was
indicted last month. In an interview in the Communist Party daily Granma, Blanco
claimed she sought asylum because she uncovered an anti-Castro plot by her
former employer.
She is wanted on a grand theft charge in Monroe County for allegedly
stealing close to $150,000 from McKenzie Petroleum, where she worked as an
office manager. Company officials have denied her allegations.
Like Blanco, 52 of the 77 fugitives are Cuban-born. Sixty-eight are air
hijackers. According to Dennis Hays, the former State Department Cuba Desk
officer who heads the Cuban American National Foundation's Washington office,
there may be "many more fugitives from state charges.''
Once in Havana, many fugitives become fiercely outspoken advocates for
Castro even as they eke out a living as tour guides, translators and
entrepreneurs doing favors for the Cuban state.
"You could call this little community an ego booster for Castro,'' said
a Washington official familiar with Cuban affairs. "They are beyond the
reach of American justice and Fidel loves that. But in reality, they are a sad,
homesick bunch.''
When the Cuban president spoke at a Harlem church last year during a visit
to the United Nations, he was lauded for rejecting a request by Congress in 1998
to return Chesimard -- the aunt of slain rapper Tupac Shakur -- to the United
States.
Patricia Wilson, a New York City-based member of one of several support
groups, claims Chesimard is a victim of FBI "terrorism'' directed at the
Black Panthers. Wilson said Chesimard did not fatally shoot a New Jersey state
trooper after she helped hold up a bank in 1973. Chesimard staged a dramatic
escape in 1979 from a maximum-security facility with the help of four friends
who commandeered a prison van.
But New Jersey officials such as U.S. Rep. Robert Menendez, a Democrat, say
she is an unrepentant murderer. "She committed some very heinous crimes,''
Menendez said.
When former Gov. Christie Todd Whitman offered a $100,000 reward in 1998 to "anyone
who assists in the safe return'' of Chesimard, Cuba Foreign Ministry spokesman
Alejandro González described her as a "well-known civil rights
activist.''
CHANGE UNLIKELY
The cases of these renegades, who include former CIA agent Frank Terpil, an
arms dealer convicted of weapons charges, and financier and indicted swindler
Robert Vesco, have long been a major irritant to the United States.
Antonio Jorge, professor of economics and international relations at Florida
International University, said the issue probably will not be resolved as long
as Castro rules.
The Cuban leader, Jorge said, "continually inveighs against the
American system -- the oppression of minorities, the exploitation of capitalism,
imperialism. With these people he can prove that there are political dissenters
in America.
"If he were to send them back it would mean he that he was surrendering
to American imperialism,'' he said. There is no extradition treaty with Cuba.
Many of these Americans on the run are given a basic package: an apartment
in Havana, ration cards, medical care, a wedding blessing, and sometimes e-mail
privileges and the ability to make pro-Castro political statements at arts
festivals.
Some have been in Cuba for decades. Puerto Rico hijacking suspect Luis Peña
Soltren has been a fugitive longer than anyone else, according to the FBI. A
warrant was issued for him on Dec. 5, 1968. It is not known what he does in
Cuba.
STILL ON THE RUN
Some of the half-dozen former Panthers who hijacked planes -- often to
escape prosecution -- are now senior citizens. Most of them speak Spanish, are
raising families, and say they are still committed to revolution.
Former Panther William Lee Brent, now almost 70, shot two police officers
and hijacked a plane in June 1969. He spent 22 months in a Cuban jail but was
released to teach at a Cuban high school. He is married to American travel book
writer Jane McManus, who is not a fugitive.
Nehanda Abiodun, 51, calls herself a "political exile.'' But according
to the FBI, the former Cheri Dalton has been a fugitive since 1981 from charges
she held up armored cars in the New York City area. She said in an interview
last year she still regards herself as a Black Liberation Army soldier.
DEEPLY HOMESICK
Charlie Hill, a member of the separatist Republic of New Afrika, shot a
police officer and hijacked a plane from Albuquerque 28 years ago. In Cuba, he
is a translator. In a 1999 interview, Hill said he tunes his radio to sports
events from the United States and acknowledged in a 1999 interview that he is
deeply homesick.
Puerto Rico nationalist Guillermo Morales, 51, lost both hands when a bomb
he was making in Queens, N.Y., blew up in 1978. He was convicted of weapons
charges and sentenced to 89 years in jail but escaped from a prison hospital and
fled to Mexico. Mexico concluded he was a victim of U.S. political persecution
and put him on a plane to Havana in 1988.
Morales has told interviewers he remains steadfastly "anti-imperialist.''
Cuba, he said, treats him with "dignity.'' Castro has asked the U.N.
Decolonization Committee to declare Puerto Rico a colony.
Not all of the fugitives are treated warmly.
An air piracy agreement signed by Havana with the United States in the 1960s
obliges Cuba to apprehend hijackers.
Tyrone Wong of San Francisco killed himself at a prison farm with a machete.
Tony Bryant, a Panther who forced a Miami-bound plane to fly to Havana, was
jailed and then expelled after complaining about prison conditions. After U.S.
officials decided not to prosecute, he joined the Miami-based anti-Castro
Commandos L.
Vesco fled to Havana in 1982 after allegedly stealing $250 million from
American investors and then helped the Cubans with high finance. But in 1996 he
was sentenced to 13 years in Villa Marista prison -- the headquarters of Cuba's
secret police -- for trying to market a miracle drug behind Castro's back.
Terpil, who allegedly supplied arms to Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, was placed
under house arrest in 1995 after Cuba investigated his business. "Cuba
could never completely trust a man like that,'' said FIU's Jorge. "He could
embarrass Castro.''
The FBI says it cannot discuss which suspects are thought to have most
recently fled to Cuba. The bureau's fugitive list once included Panther founders
Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver.
But other sources say newcomers may include more players on the
international finance and arms smuggling scene who may be of use to Cuba as it
struggles with economic distress.
They could include, for example, the dapper, Chile-born Carlos Remigio
Cardoen, who is wanted on a warrant out of U.S. District Court in South Florida
for exporting munitions without a license.
"Cuba is a rogue state,'' said a Washington official. "It is an
ideal place to hide, or use as a base for illegal activities -- as long as you
please friends in high places.''
Rep. Menendez said sheltering fugitives enables Castro to claim he is
protecting citizens of the country most critical of Cuba's human rights record.
Menendez and other members of Congress have made the fugitives' return a
condition for ending the embargo. Castro is capable of bargaining the future of
the fugitives, he asserts.
"With Vesco, it was a lot of money -- not politics. Castro is, at any
given time, not beyond using these people to his advantage.''
Award must come from frozen assets
Jilted wife of spy wins $7.1 million
By Jay Weaver . jweaver@herald.com. Published Saturday, March 10, 2001, in
the Miami Herald
The jilted former wife of Cuban spy Juan Pablo Roque was awarded more than
$7 million in damages Friday by a Miami judge who declared Cuba committed acts
of sexual battery, torture and terrorism by orchestrating Roque's sham marriage
so he could infiltrate the exile community.
"This court finds that as the unwitting victim in a plot among
terrorists that was targeted, used and injured in furtherance of acts of
international terrorism, Ms. [Ana Margarita] Martinez herself is the victim of a
terrorist act,'' Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Alan Postman ruled.
Postman said he wanted to impose a separate $20 million award in punitive
damages against Cuba for its "repugnant, contemptible and reprehensible''
actions. But he could not because Cuba has sovereign immunity under federal law.
The judge's award of $7.175 million in compensatory damages took into
account Martinez's emotional pain and suffering, including not only the alleged
sexual battery but also the ridicule by some exiles who labeled her as Roque's
ally in his spy mission.
To collect the civil judgment, her attorneys will rely on an anti-terrorist
law to pursue frozen Cuban assets in this country -- an arduous process that
will involve finding the assets, garnishing them and then obtaining President
Bush's approval to tap them.
Cuba chose not to defend itself in Martinez's suit, saying in a diplomatic
note that the U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over its government.
Last June, Postman found Fidel Castro's government liable. Following a brief
damages trial last month, the judge decided to award $175,000 a year for the
rest of Martinez's expected lifetime, to age 81.
Martinez, 40, an executive secretary with two teenage children from a
previous marriage, had mixed feelings.
"The only disappointment is I don't think the award gives Cuba a hard
enough blow,'' said a teary Martinez. "I wish it could have been higher,
not so much for my sake, but for the Cuban government to feel more pain from
this.''
Roque, described as a dashing pilot who portrayed himself as an
anti-communist, left Cuba in 1992 and dated Martinez for three years before
marrying her. He used the marriage as a front while he infiltrated the exile
community and, in particular, the Brothers to the Rescue, which searches for
Cuban rafters at sea.
Roque abruptly left Miami on Feb. 23, 1996. His shocking identity was
revealed during a CNN interview in Havana on Feb. 26 -- two days after Cuban
jets shot down two Brothers planes, killing four fliers.
"[Roque] was a bad actor, but the real bad egg was the Cuban
government,'' said attorney Fernando Zulueta, who represented Martinez.
In his 22-page opinion, Postman said Roque, as an agent of the Cuban
government, committed sexual battery on Martinez because he did not have her "informed
consent to having marital relations.''
The shootdown and subsequent revelation of Roque's identity shattered
Martinez's life, the judge wrote. Roque was eventually indicted as part of a spy
ring that allegedly conspired to penetrate U.S. military establishments. Five of
his co-conspirators are now on trial in federal court.
In the civil case, Postman said the Castro government pulled all the strings
behind the scenes, including Roque's marriage to Martinez, without any concern
for the fallout.
"Ms. Martinez was emotionally distraught and devastated by the
revelation,'' the judge wrote. "Betrayed and alone, she suffered the
criticism of some members of the local Cuban-American community who doubted her
sincerity.
"Some members of the local community ostracized Ms. Martinez,
mistakenly suspecting that she might have known her husband was a Cuban spy. She
allegedly was accused on some radio programs of conspiring with Roque.''
Following the shootdown, three of the four fliers' families sued the Cuban
government. In 1997, U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King awarded the
families about $50 million in damages, plus $35 million in sanctions against
Cuba.
But citing national security interests, President Clinton would not unfreeze
Cuban assets to pay the judgment -- at least not until Congress passed a law
last fall to take care of terrorist victims' families.
Last month, the U.S. government transferred about $93 million, including
interest, in frozen Cuban bank accounts to the Brothers families.
Attorney Scott Leeds, who also represented Martinez, said it might take a
couple of years to unlock more blocked Cuban assets for his client, but he
expects cooperation from the Bush administration.
"In the scheme of things, you couldn't ask for a better
administration,'' Leeds said. "Both on a state and federal level, it will
be well received. . . . This was truly a terrorist act. You don't let that money
go back to [perpetrators] of terrorist acts.''
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald | 