Gunboat reportedly neared exiles
BY JENNIFER BABSON
KEY WEST - As Democracy Movement leader Ramón Saúl
Sánchez and two other men sped without authorization into Cuban
territorial waters last July,
six Cuban naval vessels appeared to be waiting for them, a U.S.
Coast Guard commander said Tuesday.
One of the Cuban gunboats began advancing toward the 23-foot
speedboat carrying the Cuban exiles -- prompting Coast Guard officials
to consider
whether they should ready to use firepower to ''defend'' the
small vessel, Cmdr. Joseph Sinnett said.
Sinnett was called to testify Tuesday in the federal trial of
Sánchez, Alberto Pérez, and Pablo Rodríguez, who are
charged with intentionally violating
Florida Security Zone rules that require boaters to obtain permission
from the Coast Guard before entering Cuban waters. The men were in a boat
-- My
Right To Return Home -- that broke off from a five-vessel flotilla
that held a ceremony on the edge of Cuban waters July 14.
Senior U.S. District Judge Norman C. Roettger is presiding over the Key West trial, which is expected to last at least through this week.
Sinnett said the Coast Guard spotted the Cuban naval vessel break
off from an unusual formation of about six other Cuban government boats
that
radars indicated were off the Cuban coast as My Right to Return
ventured about 2 ½ to three miles into Cuban waters.
''One of those [Cuban] vessels left its position and started on an intercept course toward My Right To Return,'' Sinnett said.
As the cat-and-mouse game unfolded, the Coast Guard waited at
the edge of Cuban waters, frantically trying to reach Sánchez and
the others on radio,
Sinnett said. For between 15 and 20 minutes, the Coast Guard
was out of contact with the fiberglass boat and had difficulty even plotting
it on radar, he
testified.
Meanwhile, radars showed a Cuban gunboat moving to within 4 ½ to six miles of the unarmed speedboat.
Coast Guard officers again took to the radio, this time to warn the Cuban exiles that ''something was coming toward them,'' Sinnett said.
Suddenly, My Right to Return stopped -- as did the Cuban vessel
that was headed straight at it, Sinnett told jurors. At that point in his
testimony,
Sinnett's detailed description of the near-confrontation came
to a halt: Defense attorneys objected strenuously to his statements, requesting
a mistrial
which Roettger immediately denied.
Former U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey, who is representing Sánchez,
said the tale was not relevant to the government's prosecution. ''Why are
they now
portraying this drama on the high seas?'' Coffey said. ``What
they are doing is trying this case on the high seas, some event with a
patrol boat which is
dramatic.''
Roettger handed a victory to attorneys for Pérez and Rodríguez
on Tuesday -- ruling that prosecutors could not introduce a report by an
investigator who
stated that Pérez said the men had planned to enter Cuban
waters before they ever left the Keys.
The decision will likely focus the trial more squarely on Sánchez
-- whose past words to the media regarding the Security Zone may provide
ammunition to
prosecutors.
Sánchez's attorneys are likely to argue that he rashly
decided on the high seas to venture into Cuban waters when he noticed that
a Coast Guard cutter
was not blocking his path.
In his opening statement, defense attorney Benedict Kuehne called
Sánchez the ''picture of an innocent man'' whose personal convictions
and motherless
adolescence prompted him to protest Cuban President Fidel Castro's
policies.
''He's a fascinating man. He is a man whose life is dedicated
to peaceful, nonviolent change of Castro's tyranny in Cuba,'' Kuehne told
the 12-member
jury. ''Family reunification,'' Kuehne said later, was ``something
that was denied Ramón.''
Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Greenberg, who is prosecuting
the case with Assistant U.S. Attorney Eileen O'Conner, contended that Sánchez
and his
co-defendants planned to violate Security Zone rules because
they didn't approve of them.
''This is a case about three men who knowingly and willfully
broke the law because they don't like the law,'' Greenberg said. ``Three
men who broke the
law to get attention.''
A group of Cuban exile religious leaders in Miami added their
support to the three defendants Tuesday, appealing to the U.S. government
to respect the
right of Cubans to return unhindered to the land of their birth.
The group, which calls itself Spiritual Guides in Exile, issued the appeal to express its solidarity with the Democracia Movement activists.
The appeal is signed by 75 Catholic priests, 25 Protestant ministers,
six Episcopal bishops and two Catholic bishops. It justifies the action
of the three
activists as ``a right given by God to all Cubans because He
allowed us to be born on our island.''
The Rev. Martín Añorga, a Presbyterian minister,
said ''the right of Cubans to enter their homeland's territorial waters
should not be restrained if the
American authorities allow others to go fishing [in Cuba] or
visit'' the island.
El Nuevo Herald reporter Wilfredo Cancio Isla contributed to this report.