Cuban coast guard officials fatally shot a suspected migrant smuggler who remained unidentified a full day later and arrested two others after confronting them in an apparent operation to ferry 39 migrants out of the country on a US-registered speedboat.
The Communist Party daily Granma on Thursday said the confrontation occurred the previous morning near Cuba's southern coast in the western province of Pinar del Rio.
The coast guard official in charge ordered officers to open fire after the three-man crew aboard the 12-meter boat failed to stop as ordered and launched "violent sudden attacks" on a coast guard vessel, damaging the craft and almost causing it to overturn, the report said.
It said that two men aboard the US-based boat were wounded by gunfire and taken to a local hospital, where one died on Wednesday afternoon. The identity of the dead man was not immediately known because he reportedly carried no documents and the other crew members refused to cooperate.
The two men carried US passports identifying them as Rafael Mesa Farinas and Rosendo Salgado Castro, Granma said.
Drew Blakeney, spokesman for the US Interests Section in Havana, said US authorities had confirmed the names of the two surviving men and that they were US citizens. He said they were seeking consular access to them in custody. But Blakeney said they had not confirmed the identity nor the citizenship of the dead man.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that authorities were trying to ascertain what happened, and if the dead man turned out to be an US citizen it would be "deeply disturbing."
Cuban authorities blamed Wednesday's confrontation on US migration policies they say encourage its citizens to undertake risky journeys to get to the US.
Ninoska Perez Castellon, spokeswoman for the Miami-based Cuban Liberty Council, blamed the communist government, accusing it of tolerating illegal migrant smuggling.
"The Cuban government has the authority to let them go in and out," she said. "For anybody to believe that all those people are coming in and out without the government getting a cut is ridiculous."
But she also blamed the smugglers, saying they often bring 30 or 40 people on a boat made for six, charging them around US$10,000 each.
Granma said the passports of the two surviving men showed they recently visited Mexico, where Cuban authorities believe they had planned to take a boatload of migrants.
Cuban authorities later took 39 people they believe had been scheduled to leave the island on the speedboat into custody: 20 men, 12 women and seven children.
Most of the women and children were released, but some men remained in custody pending further questioning, the newspaper said.
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS