From Herald staff and wire reports
HAVANA -- For only the second time in 40 years, the United States
on Thursday
surrendered to government authorities in Cuba people accused
of hijacking a boat
or plane in an effort to reach the United States.
The six alleged hijackers of the fishing boat Albacora were delivered
to the Cuban
Coast Guard at Bahia de Cabañas, 36 miles west of Havana,
by the Coast Guard
cutter Sapelo.
SUSPECTS IDENTIFIED
Cuban authorities identified them as Leivy Herrera García,
Alexis Borges, Misael
Mena, Juan Junior Padrón, Leonardo Milián and Juana
María Nieves Mena, all of
Matanzas province, just east of Havana province.
Two crewmen also put ashore were identified as Carlos Alberto
Pérez Hernández
and Alfredo García Games, both from the city of Santa
Cruz del Norte in the
province of Havana.
The hijacking of the Albacora on Monday had threatened to add
another crisis to
already tense Cuba-U.S. relations in the midst of the tug of
war over the fate of
6-year-old Elian Gonzalez.
The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Thetis had intercepted the Albacora
Monday
afternoon 11 miles south of Key West after Cuban authorities
notified the United
States that the boat had been hijacked.
TEAM WENT ABOARD
A Coast Guard ``law enforcement team,'' boarded the Albacora,
according to
Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Ron LaBrec, and FBI hostage negotiators
were
dispatched to the scene. But the alleged hijackers surrendered.
In most previous hijackings of Cuban craft intercepted by U.S.
authorities, the
alleged hijackers have been brought to the United States to stand
trial.
But with the Cuban government angrily demanding the return of
the alleged
hijackers, officers from the Immigration and Naturalization Service
quickly
determined that none of the Cubans aboard the Albacora qualified
for U.S.
asylum.
CUBA'S VIEW
The only previous case in which accused hijackers were returned
to Cuba involved
the Sept. 26, 1997, seizure of a Cuban border patrol boat at
Varadero. The U.S.
Coast Guard intercepted the boat in international waters.
The alleged hijackers were returned to Cuba a few days later.
Copyright 1999 Miami Herald