FBI Gets Bosch, 8 Others: Exiles Nabbed in Ship Shelling
By DENIS SNEIGR
And BOB WILCOX
Miami News Reporters
FBI agents here today arrested nine Cuban exiles
on charges that they conspired to damage foreign vessels, including the
shilling of a Polish ship docked at the Port of Miami.
Dr. Orlando Bosch Avila, 41, was among those charged.
He is accused of threatening to destroy the ships and planes of Great Britain,
Mexico and Spain.
The federal grand jury indictment under which the
nine were arrested said Bosch made the threats in cablegrams sent June
6 to the heads of state of the three countries.
He allegedly threatened to damage ships and aircraft
of the three countries unless those countries stopped trading with Castro's
Cuba.
None of those indicted was charged in connection
with the 53 bombings and attempted bombings in Dade County since 1959.
Those bombings are outside federal jurisdiction.
But the indictment linked Bosch and two other of
those arrested today with a man who was charged with bombing a Cuban store
here.
The indictment did not go into details of the connection
between Bosch and Ricardo Morales Navarrere.
Bosch and two others arrested today--Jose Diaz Morejon
and Barbaro Balan Garcia--were charged with shelling the Polish freighter
Polancia on Sept. 16 while the ship was docked here.
The indictment was the vessel was hit by shells
from a 57-millimeter recoilless rifle. No one was injured in the
shelling.
The shelling of the Polish vessel led to apologies
by the United States government after protests were registered.
An FBI spokesman said 36 agents hit the homes of
the nine Cuban exiles at about 7 a.m. today. None of the exiles offered
resistance.
Those arrested and held under bonds set by Federal
Judge William O. Mehrtans were:
Bosch, of 297 NW 48th Pl., $50,000 bond.
Andres Jorge Gonzalez Gonzalez, 37, of 51 NW 76th
Ave., $50,000 bond.
Barbaro Balan Garcia, 42, of 735 SW 1st St., $50,000
bond.
Marco Rodriguez Ramos, 24, also 735 SW 1st St. $10,000
bond.
Jose Diaz Morejon, 26, of 621 SW 5th St., Apt. 2,
$50,000 bond.
Jorge Luis Gutierrez Ulla, 20, of 1029 SW 1st Ave.,
$2,500 bond.
His father, Paulino Mario Gutierrez Vidal, 45, same
address, $5,000 bond.
Aimee Miranda Cruz, 38, of 218 SW 16th Ave., $2,500
bond.
Jesus Dominguez Benitez, 27, of 2480 SW 6th Ct.,
$5,000 bond.
In Washington, FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover said the
threats with which Bosch was charged were signed Ernesto, general delegate
of Cuban Power.
Recently, in a dramatic midnight news conference,
the man who said he was Ernesto appeared wearing a hood and said Bosch
would be spokesman for the organization. Bosch later accepted.
Of the cables Bosch allegedly sent, Hoover said:
'These communications threatened that ships and
aircraft of those nations would be subjected to acts of destruction unless
those countries discontinued trade with Cuba."
Hoover added:
"The Miami-based organization known as Cuban Power
is a militant anti-Castro organization which has publicly claimed responsibility
for various acts of violence against property of those nations which have
continued to carry on trading with Cuba.