Cuba convened this Tuesday at the Foreign Ministry the charge d’affaires of the US Embassy, Benjamin Ziff, to “transfer” the “strong protest” of the island after a judge’s decision to grant political asylum to the pilot who left the island last October in a fumigation plane.
The Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, expressed the discomfort of the Cuban Government to the highest representative of the US legation, at the headquarters of Foreign Affairs, in the absence of the appointment of an ambassador.
according to a government statementCuba had requested the US in four Notes Verbales the return of the pilot, who until last Thursday was detained at a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Florida.
«In these Notes, as on this occasion, it is reiterated that acts of air piracy constitute crimes typified in various international conventions ratified by Cuba and the United States; that this act represents a violation of Cuban airspace, operational safety and aeronautical regulations in accordance with the provisions of the Annexes of the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention), and that impunity for actions of this nature constitute a negative and dangerous precedent”, affirms the protest of the Cuban Foreign Ministry.
The pilot Rubén Martínez, 29, who arrived in South Florida in an old Russian-made Antonov An-2 plane that belonged to the state-owned National Air Services Company (ENSA), justified his request for asylum under the figure of ” credible fear”, alleging that, if he returned to the island, “his life” would be “in danger”.
The island’s Foreign Ministry censured the decision of the US Government – the granting of asylum was made by a judge – and “of its judicial system, which makes them, in practice, accomplices and stimulators of piracy and kidnapping air, crimes that, if tolerated and protected, could stimulate similar unlawful acts with negative repercussions for the national security of both countries.
In this sense, on his Twitter account, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez added that the asylum given to Martínez “violates Cuban national legislation, International Law and the commitment signed by the US government.”
EFE/OnCuba
