He Ministry of the Interior (Minint) Cuban reported this Friday that the Florida boat that was involved in the incident in the island’s territorial waters, which left four dead, was carrying 14 assault and combat rifles, in addition to 12,846 bullets of different calibers.
Representatives of the Minint showed the weapons in a special program on the island’s television, in which they provided new details of the events of this Wednesday in which ten Cubans residing in the United States participated—some also with American nationality—and five members of the Cuban Border Guard Troop.
“It is combat weapons,” said the Chief of Staff of the Directorate of Border Guard Troops, Ivey Daniel Carballo, who argued that the intention was to “carry out terrorist acts, promote public disorder” and “attack military units.”
“If we did not act as we did, the dead would have been on the Cuban side,” added Carballo, who defended the “response” of the border guard, which he described as “correct,” “adequate, energetic, firm” and “endorsed in models of action.”
Carballo also stated that intense communication was maintained, “almost in real time,” with US counterparts, both at the US embassy in Havana and in the territory.
Reconstruction
According to the reconstruction of the events presented by the Minint, initially two boats with a total of ten crew members left La Florida at dawn, but one of the ships had to be abandoned halfway after its engine failed.
The five members of that ship and the material it was transporting then moved to the other vessel, which ended up entering Cuban territorial waters, a speedboat with Florida registration, FL7726SH.
Thus, this speedboat was “overloaded”, with more than a ton and a half, transporting a total of ten people and large quantities of weapons, ammunition and complete military equipment.
This vessel entered Cuban territorial waters at 7:10 in the morning, according to the Minint, and aroused suspicions “based on the technical means of the Border Guard Troops.”
The command center then informed a vessel in the area to approach the “naval objective” to verify and identify, Minint representatives explained.
The encounter occurred about two kilometers from the coast, more than 10 nautical miles inside Cuban territorial waters, according to the account of the Cuban authorities, who explained that they first opened fire from the speedboat.
The shooting occurred about 20 meters away. The Minint representatives spoke of 21 bullet holes in the speedboat and 13 in the border guard boat.
Among the material seized are three AKM rifles, AM-15 rifles, “military equipment”, 11 pistols, 134 magazines, bulletproof vests, shotguns, a power plant, a satellite equipment, a drone, uniforms, ten complete military modules, knives and tools, among others.
High penalties
The chief prosecutor of the Directorate of the Attorney General’s Office, Edward Roberts Campbell, indicated for his part that initial investigations are still being carried out to specify the types of crimes, but that the six crimes contemplated have a “high sanctioning framework” that ranges from 10 years “to perpetual deprivation of liberty and the death penalty.”
However, the prosecution has not yet formally filed charges and has not yet requested provisional detention for the six crew members of the speedboat who survived.
In addition to the four crew members of the speedboat who died, there were seven injured, who are being treated in hospitals. Six were the rest of the members of the boat from the US and the other is a soldier from the border guard troops.
The event occurred at a time of special tension between the United States and Cuba, following Washington’s imposition of an oil siege on the island and demands for negotiation and change to Havana.
