Judge orders blocked Cuba telephone money paid to shootdown victims' families

CNN March 18, 1999 Judge orders blocked Cuba telephone money paid to shootdown victims' families

                  MIAMI (AP) -- A federal judge on Thursday ordered more than $6.2
                  million owed to Cuba by U.S. phone companies be paid instead to the
                  families of three Cuban-Americans killed when their small planes were shot
                  down by Cuban jets in 1996.

                  The families of three of four fliers killed in the attack won a judgment of
                  $187 million against the Republic of Cuba and the Cuban Air Force in 1997,
                  but had been unable to collect.

                  They then asked U.S. District Court Judge James Lawrence King, who
                  awarded them the $187 million judgment, to let them seize Cuban assets in
                  the United States -- including payments owed to Cuba by telephone
                  companies doing business with the communist-controlled island.

King ruled Thursday that they could have the telephone funds.

                  They money is paid to Cuba's ETECSA phone company by U.S. telephone
                  companies as Havana's share of the payments for long-distance calls from
                  the United States to Cuba.

The largest by far, according to King, must come from AT&T, more than
$4.1 million, and MCI International Inc., about $1.05 million.

                  Cuba's telephone company severed most direct service to the United States
                  on February 25 because U.S. telephone companies have been withholding
                  payments pending King's decision.

                  Telephone service was slowed but not stopped as U.S. carriers rerouted
                  calls to the island, apparently through third countries or onto Sprint
                  telephone lines, which were not affected.

                  Four members of the Miami-based group Brothers to the Rescue who were
                  searching for refugees on rafts were killed when Cuban MiGs shot down
                  two private planes in the Florida Straits on February 24, 1996. Three of
                  them were U.S. citizens, making their families eligible to sue under U.S. law.

                  After the judgment was awarded, the relatives first went after tens of millions
                  of dollars in Cuban assets in the United States frozen by the State
                  Department since the 1960s, but ran into opposition from the State and
                  Treasury departments.

                  The families' effort to garnishee the telephone funds had also been opposed
                  by the Clinton administration, which argued the U.S. trade embargo bans
                  any financial dealings with Cuba, including garnishments, unless specifically
                  licensed by Washington.

                  Officials also argued that the Cuban phone company, ETECSA, a joint
                  venture between the Cuban government and an Italian company, is an
                  independent company and therefore cannot be affected by the relatives' suit
                  against the Cuban government.