CUBA
NEWS The
Miami Herald
Jailed spy may hold key to fallen pilots'
case
Relatives of the Brothers
to the Rescue shoot-down victims hope a
jailed Cuban spy might provide evidence
that would permit the indictment of Raúl
Castro.
By Oscar Corral, ocorral@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Thu, Feb. 23, 2006.
The best witness the U.S. government may
have to indict Raúl Castro in the
1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot-down could
be sitting in a federal prison, said a source
who asked not to be named because of direct
knowledge of the ongoing probe.
Gerardo Hernández, a convicted Cuban
spy facing a life sentence if his appeals
fail, managed the Red Avispa, a spy ring
with at least 16 members broken up by federal
authorities in 2001. He could have information
that ties other Cuban government officials
to the Brothers shoot-down, possibly even
Raúl Castro, authorities confirmed.
''That's ridiculous,'' said Hernández's
lawyer, Paul McKenna, who acknowledged Wednesday
that the federal government has tried to
get his client to turn state's evidence
against Cuba.
Friday marks the 10-year anniversary of
the attack, when Cuban MiGs shot down two
unarmed civilian airplanes over international
waters, killing three American citizens
-- Carlos Costa, 29; Armando Alejandre,
Jr., 45; Mario de la Peña, 24 --
and U.S. resident Pablo Morales, 29.
WANTED: RAUL CASTRO?
The victims' families believe Raúl
Castro is the highest official in Cuba's
chain of command who can be indicted under
U.S. law for his alleged role in the shoot-down,
as head of the Cuban armed forces.
An indictment may seem like a fool's errand
to some people, but there is legal precedent,
and family members say there are geopolitical
ramifications to their quest for justice.
The legitimacy of Raúl Castro, who
is next in line to succeed Fidel Castro
as Cuba's leader, would be questioned in
the international arena if he is under indictment
by the United States, the families believe.
Interim U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta
said the case remains open but would not
elaborate. "This is an active case
in active litigation.''
But other U.S. officials who have been
at the forefront of the case say anything
is possible -- if the evidence supports
it.
''You don't have to be an expert to know
how that country is run, and who has the
ultimate say and makes the decisions that
would affect the country in such an immediate
way,'' said Guy Lewis, a former U.S. attorney
for the Southern District of Florida who
oversaw the prosecution of the Avispa trial.
"I think they [the MiG pilots] were
following orders from their superiors .
. . Without speaking to any individual or
potential defendants, like Raúl Castro,
it was clear in my mind that the evidence
supported the fact that these individuals
did not act alone.''
SPY WOULD NOT FLIP
Hernández could provide the key
for indicting high-level Cuban government
officials. Hernández was sentenced
for his role in the Brothers attack, as
well as for an espionage plot targeting
military bases and exile groups.
The source said that federal authorities
tried to get Hernández to testify
against his superiors back in 2001, but
he wouldn't do it.
''But if this guy's sentence gets affirmed
and he is facing life in prison, and his
appeals have been exhausted, maybe he'll
have second thoughts,'' the source said.
McKenna said the government has tried to
flip Hernández multiple times.
''He [Hernández] has been approached
in every conceivable manner to cooperate
with the government and his position has
always been, 'I didn't know what they [the
Cuban military] were going to do,''' McKenna
said. "His job was to monitor Brothers
to the Rescue to find out when they were
going to fly and pass that along, but he
never knew what they were going to do. He
never had any indication that they were
going to shoot them down.''
Many exiles also blame Fidel Castro, but
the victims' family members and federal
authorities concede that under international
law, indicting a head of state is much more
difficult.
Wayne Smith, former chief of the U.S. Interest
Section in Cuba and an opponent of the U.S.
embargo OF Cuba, scoffs at the notion of
indicting either Raúl or Fidel Castro.
''It's absolutely stupid,'' said Smith,
who added that Cuba's attack on the planes
was wrong.
"That's something only the absurd
right wing in the Cuban-American community
can come up with, and it would not stand
up in any court outside Miami.''
EXISTING PRECEDENTS
There have been other indictments over
the years.
In 2003, the U.S. government indicted Cuban
Air Force Gen. Rubén Martínez
Puente and two MiG fighter pilots, brothers
Lorenzo Pérez Pérez and Francisco
Pérez Pérez, for their roles
in the shoot down. It was a largely symbolic
gesture because there is no extradition
agreement between Cuba and the United States.
Marcos Jimenez, who was U.S. attorney when
those Cubans were charged, said indicting
a high government official from another
country requires Justice Department approval.
''A local U.S. attorney is not going to
act independently,'' Jimenez said.
Justice Department spokesman Drew Wade
said, "We never confirm or deny the
existence of criminal investigations.''
It isn't the first time the U.S. government
has considered indicting Raúl Castro,
however.
Back in 1993, U.S. prosecutors drafted
an indictment against Raúl Castro,
alleging that he led the Cuban government
in a 10-year racketeering conspiracy to
import cocaine from Colombia's Medellin
cartel through Cuba and Nicaragua into the
United States. It was never pursued.
Perhaps the most high-profile indictment
of a foreign head of state by the U.S. attorney's
office in Miami is former Panamanian leader
Manuel Noriega.
The families of the shoot-down victims
have never stopped lobbying the government
for more indictments.
''The indictment of all Cuban government
officials criminally responsible will not
only serve to vindicate the families and
this community . . . but it will also serve
to ensure the future of freedom and democracy
in Cuba,'' three family members -- Mirta
Costa, Miriam de la Peña and Maggie
Khuly Alejandre -- said in a June 6 letter
to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
José Basulto, the founder of Brothers
to the Rescue and the only pilot who got
away from Cuban MiGs that day, believes
there is blame on both sides of the Florida
Straits. He thinks that Washington could
have done much more to prevent the shoot-down,
but did not act, keeping fighter jets grounded
at Homestead Air Reserve Base. Like the
families of the victims, Basulto filed a
multimillion dollar lawsuit against Cuba
recently and won. But he has not yet collected
the $1.75 million he was awarded, he said.
''The will to act is the only thing that
is missing to indict Raul and Fidel,'' Basulto
said. "The reason they haven't done
it is because of involvement from the White
House.''
Lawmakers call U.S. wrong to push eviction
of Cubans
Twenty-five U.S. lawmakers
criticized the government for pushing a
hotel in Mexico City to evict a Cuban delegation.
By Pablo Bachelet, pbachelet@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Wed, Feb. 22, 2006.
WASHINGTON - A group of 25 lawmakers on
Tuesday sent a letter to the Treasury Department
criticizing an order to evict a Cuban delegation
from a U.S.-owned hotel in Mexico as a potential
"overreaching application of U.S. law
that could have significant worldwide implications.''
The bipartisan congressional letter was
the latest fallout from a Feb. 3 decision
by the Sheraton María Isabel hotel
in Mexico City to evict 16 Cubans attending
an energy conference with U.S. executives,
following a warning by the Treasury Department
that it might be violating U.S. laws.
The incident angered many Mexicans who
considered it an undue extension of U.S.
law into their country and spurred investigations
by both the city and federal authorities.
A Mexico City judge ruled Tuesday that the
hotel could stay open pending a decision
on the hotel's request for an injunction
to block charges it violated city codes.
The congressional letter said the Treasury
Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control
may be setting a dangerous new precedent.
''Is OFAC setting a new standard that no
American-owned hotel or other commercial
enterprise can ever provide services to
a Cuban national?'' the letter said.
The letter was signed by members of Congress
usually critical of U.S. policy toward Cuba,
including Reps. Howard Berman, D-Calif.;
Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.; Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz.;
Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., and William Delahunt,
D-Mass..
Cuban economic sanctions ban U.S. companies
and individuals from knowingly offering
goods and services to Cuban nationals.
''If a U.S.-owned movie theater in a foreign
country sold a ticket to a Cuban, is that
company subject to a penalty?'' the letter
added.
A person close to Starwood Hotels &
Resorts Worldwide -- owner of the Sheraton
trademark -- who spoke on condition of anonymity
because of the delicate legal nature of
the matter, said the hotel had asked the
members not to send the letter because ''the
full story is not known'' and the letter
contained statements that could compromise
the company's legal position in Mexico.
Families remember fallen Brothers to
the Rescue
The families of four
aid workers killed by Cuban missiles 10
years ago are still searching for answers
By Oscar Corral, ocorral@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Wed, Feb. 22, 2006.
A casual visitor might think that Carlos
Costa still lives in his Hialeah house.
His 1989 Ford Probe sits on the driveway.
The walls inside the home are lined with
his many awards. All his clothes hang in
his bedroom closet. Brochures for a new
car remain on his nightstand.
But the brochures date back to 1996. The
Probe is propped up on deflated tires, its
paint dulled by a decade of merciless sunshine.
And the plaques on the wall were mostly
awarded posthumously.
Carlos Costa has been dead for 10 years,
shot out of the sky along with three other
men by Cuban fighter pilots as they flew
unarmed airplanes on a humanitarian mission,
looking for Cuban rafters in 1996. Costa's
parents have preserved his bedroom and his
things exactly as they were then.
This week marks the 10th anniversary of
the Feb. 24 Brothers to the Rescue incident,
when a Cuban MiG fired missiles at two small
airplanes over the Florida Straits, killing
three American citizens: Costa, 29; Armando
Alejandre, Jr., 45; Mario de la Peña,
24; and U.S. resident Pablo Morales, 29.
The shoot-down, which galvanized Miami's
Cuban exile community and has set the tone
for U.S.-Cuba relations the last 10 years,
still haunts the family members of the victims.
They have immersed themselves in a quixotic
quest for justice, collecting evidence in
hopes the U.S. government will indict Raúl
Castro, head of the Cuban armed forces.
Costa's old home serves as a reminder of
a young man's life snuffed out as collateral
damage in the acrimonious Cold War between
Cuba and the United States.
''This is all exactly the way it was when
he left to go on the plane ride,'' said
Osvaldo Costa as he showed a reporter his
son's room. "These were his things,
and we don't want to disrespect them.''
Cuba maintains that the Brothers' unarmed
planes violated its territorial airspace,
but the United Nations' International Civil
Aviation Organization concluded the planes
were over international waters and the U.N.
Security Council condemned Cuba by a 13-0
vote.
The shoot-down compelled then-President
Bill Clinton, whose administration had been
seeking better relations with Cuba, to instead
sign into law an even tighter economic embargo.
Relations between the two countries have
remained tense since then.
ENDLESS QUEST
Many of the family members have quit day
jobs and now work full-time seeking justice
-- a luxury made possible by a multimillion
dollar lawsuit they won against the Cuban
government.
They've had mixed results: A Cuban spy
was convicted in U.S. courts of conspiring
to help the Cuban government in the shoot-down.
The families won $93 million in compensation
from the civil lawsuit against the Cuban
government, which they collected from Cuban
assets that had been dormant in American
banks for decades. And in 2003, the U.S.
indicted the two Cuban pilots who shot the
planes and the general who gave the order
-- a largely symbolic gesture because there
is no extradition treaty with Cuba.
The families say those legal moves barely
scratch the surface. They want indictments
straight up the chain of command, leading
to Raúl Castro, the head of the Cuban
military -- and possibly even Fidel Castro.
''We will never forget that these innocent
people were killed,'' said Miriam de la
Peña, Mario de la Peña's mother.
"It's now a way of life. I am obsessed
with the truth.''
The exile community has closed ranks around
them, naming major streets in Miami-Dade
after the victims, erecting memorials of
the shoot-down in parks and airports, and
offering support.
For the families, the last 10 years have
been an odyssey of sadness.
Whenever Mirta Costa enters her son's room
she picks up the bottle of Calvin Klein
Escape cologne that he left on his desk
-- his favorite -- and sprays the room.
''I like to smell my son when I come in
here,'' she said. "It makes me feel
like he's still here.''
Marlene Alejandre-Triana, 28, walked down
the aisle alone in her 2003 wedding, led,
she said, by the ghost of her father.
''I thought I would be a wreck, but I wasn't,''
she said. "My dad was taking me to
him [the groom].''
"My dad was essentially my best friend.
For me, it's always just about my father
being taken away from me.''
Eva Barbas, the 81-year-old mother of Pablo
Morales, said she wants to die thinking
perhaps her son somehow survived and will
reappear one day.
''I have hope that God was able to take
him out of the plane before they gave the
order to kill them,'' said Barbas. "That's
how I'd like to die, thinking that he was
not pulverized. And that's how I am waiting,
in front of his picture here. He and God
give me strength, and I am waiting for justice
from this government.''
Barbas is the only one of the victims'
family members to keep in touch with Jose
Basulto, the founder of Brothers to the
Rescue, who led the two other planes the
day they were shot down, but got away in
his own plane unscathed.
The relationship between Basulto and the
de la Peña, Costa and Alejandre families
soured not long after the shoot-down, as
questions arose about Basulto's role, whether
he could have done more to save his fellow
pilots, and whether he should have even
been flying near Cuba that day, given the
warning signs around him.
The relationship worsened after those three
families received $93 million from the legal
case designed to let American citizens sue
governments of terrorist-sponsoring states
in U.S. courts.
Basulto, who didn't receive any money in
the settlement, said he feels he has carried
the cross in the quest to find truth in
the case.
DIFFERENT PRIORITIES
''They took the money and forgot about
justice,'' Basulto said of the other families.
"The old lady [Barbas] and I have carried
the cross in looking for truth and justice.
My only moral support has been Eva Barbas.''
Barbas was not part of the civil suit because
her son was not a U.S. citizen. But she
didn't accept any money offered to her by
the other families in the settlement. She
declined to explain why.
She said she keeps in touch with Basulto
because she is eternally grateful to him.
Her son was first spotted at sea by a Brothers
to the Rescue plane when he was making his
way across the Florida Straits on a raft,
and she feels they saved his life. Morales
joined Brothers shortly after that.
Brothers to the Rescue, now with a single
plane that hasn't flown in two years, no
longer flies missions looking for Cuban
migrants at sea.
Miriam de la Peña explains that
the civil settlement hurt Cuba where it
hurt most -- the pocketbook. And it was
the closest the families have gotten to
seeing the case play out in a U.S. court.
''We felt the indemnity was a triumph of
justice,'' she said. "Money made it
less difficult in our travels and in dedicating
all our time to this.''
Mario de la Peña quit his job as
an accountant, and his wife quit her job
in the marketing department of an airline
to focus full-time on the case. They now
live in a gated community in Pembroke Pines,
surrounded by family members who also own
homes in the neighborhood.
All of the families who collected in the
lawsuit said they have also established
foundations and have donated millions of
dollars to local charities, including the
local veterans hospital, Jackson Memorial
Hospital, human rights groups, and other
local schools, hospitals and universities.
Each family received about $20 million,
several family members said.
Money seems to have brought little solace
for the families.
Mirta Costa blames her husband for not
convincing her son to stay grounded the
day he was killed. Osvaldo Costa said no
one could have talked their son out of flying.
Carlos Costa's car, his room, his smell,
are testaments to the difficulties of letting
go. ''It's like we have him here with us,''
Osvaldo Costa said.
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