Border Patrol, FBI question migrants rescued at sea from capsized boat

 At least five Cubans are dead or missing, the Coast Guard says.

 BY JENNIFER BABSON, ALFONSO CHARDY AND JENNIFER MILLER

 Two Miami-area men suspected of making the deadly migrant run that killed at least five Cubans were in custody Friday as federal agents questioned the survivors in
 anticipation of a grand jury indictment against the pair.

 Osvaldo Fernández Marrero, 35, and Roberto Montero Domínguez, 30, both of Miami-Dade County, were among 22 shipwreck survivors picked up at sea Wednesday. A federal magistrate on Friday signed a complaint against the men, accusing each of conspiracy to smuggle aliens and attempted for-profit alien smuggling. The government has not ruled out seeking the death penalty.

 An affidavit signed by Border Patrol agent Gary Unger said one of the survivors overheard a smuggler say he expected to make $40,000 for the trip. Another survivor said he paid $8,000 for a spot on the overloaded boat.

 Fernández Marrero has lived here since 1999; Montero Domínguez since 1998. They are scheduled to make an initial appearance in court on Monday afternoon.

 ``This is an important priority in this office, to prosecute those individuals who profit from the misery of the Cuban people,'' said Aloyma Sánchez, spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office.

 Montero Domínguez's neighbors said they don't believe he and Fernández Marrero, a former roommate, are smugglers. They said he would only return to the island to bring back his two daughters -- a 1-year-old and another around 6 years old. Montero Domínguez kept a picture of the girls in his wallet.

 ``If Osvaldo did it, he did it for those two girls in Cuba,'' said Yamil González, 33, a next-door neighbor until the pair moved out within the last month.

 Three girls -- ages 1, 3 and 6 -- are missing and presumed dead, according to the Border Patrol.

 Friday night, after six hours of questioning at the Border Patrol station in Pembroke Pines, the migrant survivors were taken to the Krome detention center in West
 Miami-Dade. They were not expected to be released Friday evening, according to Joe Mellia, Border Patrol spokesman.

 Outside, anxious relatives waited for word on those who had survived the journey.

 Ursula Lugo, 51, left work early and headed for Krome. Her niece had called from Cuba Wednesday asking if she had seen her husband, Julio Muñoz, a food vendor from Diez de Octubre in Havana. She said he had left on a boat.

 ``. . . every time I see the boat on television I start to cry,'' Lugo said.

 Lugo's niece, Zaily Trejo, 31, said Cuban television aired news that all who left on the boat had perished.

 SEARCH ENDS

 At least 27 people were crammed aboard a 27-foot vessel, which capsized in six- to eight-foot seas 20 miles south of Key West. Late Thursday, the Coast Guard ended a search for a woman and three small children reported missing after the shipwreck. They are now presumed dead. The body of a male passenger was recovered. Another corpse was spotted before rescuers could pull it from the sea and it could be the missing woman.

 Meanwhile, more details emerged Friday about the harrowing voyage and rescue.

 The group left at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday from Santa Cruz del Norte near Guanabo beach just east of Havana, Border Patrol officials said. The group ran into trouble early Wednesday in rough seas kicked up by a fledgling tropical wave that later developed into Tropical Storm Barry, and the boat capsized.

 Early Wednesday, rescuers found a father clinging to the boat and propping up his lifeless son, the man whose body was recovered. The father said the son had been knocked unconscious during the accident. He could not be revived. The only thing keeping them afloat was an inner tube the size of a lawn-mower tire, said Senior Chief Boatswain John Buchanan, officer in charge of the Cutter Metompkin.

 Few of the survivors had any flotation devices. One older man kept afloat with an upside down bucket that had captured air.

 One of the women still missing and presumed dead was wearing a life jacket, but it was meager, the survivors told the Coast Guard. She didn't know how to swim.

 The man who treaded water for more than 12 hours was pulled out of the sea by a Texas A&M research vessel. He allegedly asked the crew if he could store a large amount of money aboard the ship. Once aboard the Coast Guard cutter, he didn't have any money on him, said the Metompkin's Buchanan. Rescuers thought he was one of the two paid smugglers, but a Border Patrol spokesman couldn't confirm that.

 The decision to bring the migrants ashore was key to the prosecution. The initial call by U.S. Border Patrol investigators, who were eager for the smugglers to be
 prosecuted, also helped mollify Cuban exile community leaders who feared that the migrants were about to be sent back to Cuba.

 Three U.S. Border Patrol agents who boarded a Coast Guard cutter to conduct preliminary interviews with survivors were the ones who made the initial recommendation to bring the Cubans ashore. That decision was then endorsed by Miami U.S. Attorney Guy A. Lewis in consultation with senior U.S. officials in Washington, Justice Department officials said.

 Prosecutors in Miami took their plea to the Justice Department's Office of International Affairs in Washington, an official said.

 Prior to the decision to bring the survivors ashore, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service officials in Washington appeared poised to return the migrants to Cuba, in keeping with the wet foot/dry foot policy under which Cubans are allowed to stay if they reach land but are sent back if they're picked up at sea.

 Cuban exile leaders lobbied the White House and the Justice Department to let the rescued Cubans stay, and the high-level discussions involving various federal agencies in Washington and Miami demonstrates that Wednesday's incident was far from routine.

 It was a departure from the general practice of returning Cuban migrants rescued at sea. In previous cases, migrants brought ashore have been either injured or made credible asylum claims.

 WAITING FOR WORD

 At Krome, other waiting relatives included Tomás González and his wife, Mercedes. González said he heard from relatives in Havana that his brother Mario González, 58, his brother's son, Mario González Paula, 30, and his cousin, Rómulo Matgareño, 40, had left Tuesday from Havana, but he hasn't heard from his brother since.

 An exile from Havana, González came to Miami during the rafter exodus of 1994. He, his wife and 4-year-old daughter were at sea for three days and ran into three storms with seven- to eight-foot waves. Amid thousands of other rafts, they saw people drowning.

 ``I was never in agreement for them to come by water,'' he said.

 Herald researcher Elisabeth Donovan and staff writers Richard Brand, Wanda J. DeMarzo and Marika Lynch contributed to this report.

                                    © 2001