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Passenger claims boaters
weren't smugglers and actually rescued 29
Cubans
By Madeline Baró
Diaz, Miami Bureau. Sun-Sentinel,
July 11 2006.
MIAMI -- Two of the men accused in a
fatal alleged smuggling attempt actually
rescued the Cubans found aboard their speedboat,
a passenger on the ill-fated trip said Monday.
Yuliet Escandón, 22, said she, her
husband and 30 others left from Havana and
set sail on a homemade raft Saturday. After
they ran into trouble, two men on a speedboat
happened by and picked them up, she said
during a news conference at the Miami headquarters
of the Cuban activist group Democracy Movement.
It was the rafters who encouraged their
rescuers to outrun the U.S. Coast Guard
vessels that tried to stop them Saturday
south of Key West, she said.
"We told them not to stop, that we
had freedom right there in front of us,"
said Escandón, who is five months
pregnant and was brought ashore because
she was suffering from abdominal pains.
Most of the others in the group remained
aboard a Coast Guard cutter on Monday.
A Coast Guard crew member shot and disabled
the speedboat's engine, and when the Coast
Guard crewmen boarded the boat they found
Anai Machado Gonzalez, 24, badly injured.
She died from head trauma by the time she
arrived in the Florida Keys for medical
treatment.
Despite Escandón's statement, three
men -- including her husband, Amil Gonzalez
Rodriguez, identified as Yamil in court
papers -- have been charged with taking
part in a smuggling operation that resulted
in a death. On Monday, the three made their
first appearance in Key West federal court
and will have pretrial hearings on Friday
or Monday if they have not obtained attorneys
by Thursday.
The others were identified as Rolando Gonzalez
Delgado and Heinrich Castillo Diaz.
Escandón seemed to be unaware of
the charges against her husband. She thanked
U.S. officials for bringing him to the United
States but said she did not know why he
had not been released like she had.
U.S. Magistrate Lurana Snow ordered the
Coast Guard not to repatriate any of the
29 people still on board the cutter until
the accused smugglers hire attorneys.
Under U.S. immigration policy, Cubans intercepted
at sea are interviewed by immigration agents
and repatriated if they do not demonstrate
a credible fear of persecution if returned
to Cuba. Most are repatriated.
According to an affidavit by R. Craig Karch
II, a special agent with Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, Coast Guard crews responding
to the scene saw the three accused men at
the center console of the 36-foot boat and
also saw Gonzalez Rodriguez waving off the
Coast Guard and ordering one of the people
on board to act as a human shield over the
engines.
Yilian Soto, Castillo Diaz's wife, said
her husband, who has been in the United
States for three years, went fishing with
his friend "Roly" on a borrowed
speedboat. He called her on Sunday and told
her he and his friend rescued a group of
Cubans in a sinking vessel and were arrested
for smuggling, Soto said.
"My husband has never been involved
in human trafficking," she said.
Soto, Escandón and relatives of
people on the cutter were part of Monday's
news conference. Crying and clutching photos
of their loved ones, they asked U.S. authorities
to allow their family members into the country.
"Don't return them. Don't take them
away," said Rebeca Croes, whose twin
sister, Morelia Croes, was part of the group.
"They are traumatized because they
saw a dead person, because they were part
of a shootout, because they went through
a lot of ugly things."
Copyright
© 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
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