[NYTr] Cuban spared death sentence in bloody hijack bid
 
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2007 18:55:27 -0500 (CDT)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
[Interesting... here we are handed a picture of Raul as "more lenient
and more opposed to the use of the death penalty" than Fidel Castro.
The death penalty has been rarely used in decades inside Cuba, even
during the late 1990s when the terrorist Luis Posada Carriles and his
Salvadoran and other underlings were planting bombs in Cuba's
tourist areas that maimed and killed. The rare exceptions were the
Ochoa execution years ago (see below) and the violent hijackers who
took over a civilian ferryboat and held its passengers hostage at
knifepoint.  The fact that members of the military (and not civilians)
were targeted, and one killed, by this would-be hijacker has more to do
with his being given life in prison than whether Raul or Fidel is
running the day-to-day government.-NYTr.]

Reuters via Yahoo - Sep 19, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070919/wl_nm/cuba_hijack_sentences_dc

Cuban avoids death sentence in bloody hijack bid

By Anthony Boadle 

HAVANA (Reuters) - A Cuban army sergeant who shot and killed [an
off-duty] a soldier and an officer in an attempt to hijack a plane to
the United States has been sentenced to life in prison, a rights group
said on Wednesday.

The Cuban military court's decision to avoid the death penalty in this
case suggests acting President Raul Castro is reluctant to use capital
punishment, the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National
Reconciliation said.

Four years ago, three civilians who hijacked a Havana ferry in a failed
bid to flee Cuba in which no one was hurt were executed by firing
squad. [No one was hurt?  The civilians aboard, including at least one
pregnant woman, were held without sufficient food or water for hours and
threatened with knives. That was the end of violent deadly passenger
ferry hijack attempts by thugs. And yes, we disapprove of the
death penalty, too. This was just shortly after the Cuban Govt
rolled up a huge network of mercenary spies and saboteurs in the
employ of the CIA/US interests sections. Many of those have
already been released early from prison for health reasons. -NYTr]

Sgt. Yoan Torres, 21, received the life sentence for killing a guard to
escape from an army base and shooting a lieutenant colonel in the cabin
of Boeing 737 at Havana airport during the foiled hijack attempt on May
3.

Two other sergeants and a corporal involved in the escape bid received
sentences ranging from life to 25 years. A civilian accomplice was
handed a 15-year term.

The closed-door trial took place August 24-26 and the noncommissioned
officers were informed of the sentences last week, the rights
commission said in a statement.

Cuba has executed several thousand people since the 1959 revolution led
by Cuban leader Fidel Castro, said the commission's spokesman, veteran
rights activist Elizardo Sanchez.

"It is remarkable that death sentences have not been given in two case
of serious state security crimes," said Sanchez, adding that he
believes Raul Castro is more lenient than his brother.

Fidel Castro handed over power to Raul after undergoing
life-threatening intestinal surgery in July 2006. He has not appeared
in public since.

Capital punishment was abolished in Cuba in 1940 and reintroduced after
Castro's 1959 revolution, when hundreds of members of the ousted
right-wing dictatorship accused of rights abuses were shot. [And rarely
in recent years has it been used, except in cases such as one of a
corrupt drug-dealing high military officer (Ochoa) whose actions could
have proven to be extremely dangerous to the revolution.-NYTr]

Sanchez said he hoped Cuba will maintain a moratorium on capital
punishment that had been in effect since 2000 and was broken by the
2003 executions.

The three executions led to widespread criticism of Cuba. Along with a
crackdown on dissent, the executions were followed by a three-year
freeze in relations with the European Union.

Sanchez said more executions would undermine efforts to improve
political ties between Cuba and Brussels spearheaded by Spain's
socialist government.

He urged Cuba to commute sentences of 40 Cubans now on death row and
abolish the death penalty.

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