Coast Guard commander: Cuban gunship headed toward Sanchez's boat
BY JENNIFER BABSON
As the federal trial of Cuban exile leader Ramon Saul Sanchez
began Tuesday, a U.S. Coast Guard commander testified that a Cuban gunboat
headed
toward Sanchez's speedboat when he entered Cuban waters in July.
Sanchez and two other men, Alberto Pérez and Pablo Rodríguez,
were indicted last year for allegedly violating Florida Security Zone rules
when they
ventured into Cuban waters without Coast Guard permission. This
is the first time anyone has been prosecuted for allegedly violating Security
Zone rules.
The men were in Cuban seas for about an hour on a 23-foot speedboat
called My Right to Return.
Cmdr. Joseph Sinnett, of the cutter Spencer, said the Coast Guard's
radar picked up six Cuban gunboats in a semicircle in the island's territorial
waters.
One left its position and ''started on an intercept course''
toward Sanchez's boat, Sinett said.
When Sanchez's boat stopped inside Cuban waters, the Cuban vessel
also stopped, when the two boats were within four to six miles of each
other, he
testified.