Relatives of three Cuban men executed in 2003 for attempting to hijack a boat offered a teary video testimony before an OAS panel.

BY PABLO BACHELET

WASHINGTON - The relatives of three young Cuban men who were summarily tried and executed in 2003 for attempting to hijack a small boat testified Monday before the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights through a video smuggled out of the island.

The poor-quality video was produced by a member of the Cuban opposition and was shown during a one-hour hearing at the IACHR headquarters in Washington. It showed a grandmother clutching the childhood photo of one of the executed men, and two other male relatives.

''I cry every day,'' said the grandmother, tears in her eyes as she sat outside a residence with little furniture or luxury. ''I would say that what I am suffering is the fault of the comandante,'' she said in a reference to Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

The identities of the three relatives filmed in the video were revealed during the proceedings, but organizers asked the news media not to publish the names to protect them from retaliation by the Cuban security services.

On Apr. 2 of 2003, Lorenzo Copello, Bárbaro Sevilla and Jorge Martínez tried to hijack a Havana ferry with about 50 people on board at gunpoint and force it to sail for the United States. They were caught, tried and executed by firing squad nine days later in a case condemned by the human rights community, the U.S. and other governments.

The hearing at the IACHR, a branch of the Organization of American States, also revealed new details on the trial. The family members said they were not allowed to meet with the accused men and were not informed of the trial until it was over. Officials also refused to let them see the bodies after their executions.

In the same case, the court also sentenced four other men to prison terms that ranged from 30 years to life, and sent three women to prison for three years each.

The hijackers met their court-appointed defense lawyers just 15 minutes before the beginning of the trial on Apr. 5, said representatives of the American University's Washington College of Law, which is acting on behalf of the relatives before the IACHR. The trial lasted three days.

Cuban officials said death sentences were necessary to stop possible mass migrations to the United States.

The petitioners are asking that Cuba be made to pay reparations to the victims, which in past cases have amounted to $600,000. But Cuba does not recognize the IACHR's powers because the island's OAS membership was suspended in 1962. Seats reserved for Cuban officials to defend the executions were empty Monday.

The IACHR argues that Cuban citizens still enjoy the protections of the Inter-American Declaration of Human Rights, an instrument that Cuba has ratified.

One of the men who testified said relatives of the three men harbored anger but little hope. ''You have to suffer in silence,'' he said.

At the end of the ten-minute tape, a voice is heard telling the relatives that they ''had the solidarity'' of the opposition movement in Cuba.

''The whole world needs to hear this, that is what I want,'' the grandmother responded.