Havana — Top officials with Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior on Friday released for the first time a list of items they said were aboard a Florida-flagged speedboat that opened fire on Cuban troops off the island’s north coast this week; Cuban soldiers responded and killed four suspects.
Authorities told The Associated Press they established that the 10 Cuban suspects left the U.S. in two boats, but one failed, so all supplies were transferred to the remaining boat and the other was left adrift. Officials said the detainees provided those details and that Cuba immediately contacted the U.S. Coast Guard.
Cuban officials displayed the seized items: about a dozen high-powered weapons including one with a scope; a cooler holding more than 12,800 rounds of ammunition; 11 pistols; heavy-duty boots; helmets with cameras; and camouflage backpacks.
“We were clearly able to assess that we were facing a terrorist action from a boat coming from the United States,” 1st Col. Ivey Daniel Carballo of the Cuban Border Guard Troops told the AP.
Carballo said a 30-foot (nine meter) border patrol boat detected an intruder Wednesday morning, approached to within about 600 feet (185 meters) to investigate and was met with high-caliber gunfire. Three attackers were killed immediately and a fourth was wounded and later died. The speedboat was located about one mile (1.6 kilometers) northeast of Cayo Falcones. The border guard commander was injured.
Victor Eduardo Alvarez Valle, a head of Criminal Investigation for State Security at the Interior Ministry, said authorities were surprised by the resistance and number of weapons. He said the assailants identified the military equipment, explained where and how they acquired it, described the training they received and revealed who financed it. Officials reported finding 13 bullet holes on the border guard boat and 21 on the suspect’s vessel, “meaning that there was combat,” Alvarez said.
Cuban authorities had previously reported that one person had been captured on land; Alvarez said there is so far no information indicating a support network on the island.
Edward Robert Campbell, chief prosecutor of the Attorney General’s Office directorate, said the six arrested, all of Cuban origin, could face terrorism charges that carry possible sentences ranging from 30 years to life or even the death penalty, although the death penalty has been under moratorium for more than a decade.
The AP was given access to Cuban military officials and shown the items at the headquarters of the former Cuban Institute of Radio and Television ahead of a program displaying them to the public for the first time.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it was not a U.S. government operation and that the American government was gathering its own information.
