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HAVANA (AP) — In a dramatic revelation late Friday, senior officials from Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior disclosed the contents of a Florida-flagged speedboat involved in a deadly confrontation off the island’s northern coast. This encounter resulted in the deaths of four suspects after an exchange of gunfire with Cuban troops.
Details emerged that the 10 Cuban suspects had embarked from the United States in two separate boats. However, due to technical issues with one of the vessels, they consolidated their supplies onto the remaining operational boat, leaving the other adrift. This information was relayed to The Associated Press by Cuban authorities, who noted that they promptly alerted the U.S. Coast Guard following the incident.
Among the items allegedly found on the speedboat were a dozen high-powered firearms, including one equipped with a scope, a large cooler containing over 12,800 rounds of ammunition, 11 pistols, as well as military-grade equipment such as heavy-duty boots, helmets fitted with cameras, and camouflage backpacks.
1st Col. Ivey Daniel Carballo of the Cuban Border Guard Troops emphasized the gravity of the situation, telling the AP, “We were clearly able to assess that we were facing a terrorist action from a boat coming from the United States.”
“We were clearly able to assess that we were facing a terrorist action from a boat coming from the United States,” 1st Col. Ivey Daniel Carballo of the Cuban Border Guard Troops told the AP.
According to Carballo, the 30-foot (nine meter) border patrol boat detected an intruder on Wednesday morning and approached to within about 600 feet (185 meters) to investigate, but it was met with high-caliber gunfire.
He said that three of the attackers were immediately killed and that a fourth was wounded and later died.
Caraballo said the speedboat was located about one mile (1.6 kilometers) northeast of Cayo Falcones off the island’s north coast. The border guard commander was injured, he added.
Victor Eduardo Álvarez Valle, one of the heads of Criminal Investigation for State Security at the Ministry of the Interior, told the AP that authorities were surprised by the resistance they encountered.
“We didn’t expect it, especially with that many people and weapons,” he said.
“The military equipment found on board has been identified by the assailants, including where and how they acquired it, and the training they received. They also revealed who financed it,” Álvarez added.
He noted that officials detected 13 bullet holes on the border guard boat and 21 others on the suspect’s vessel, “meaning that there was combat.”
The Cuban government had reported Wednesday that a person had been captured on land, but Álvarez said that so far, there is no information that the suspects had any support network on the island.
Cuba’s chief prosecutor of the directorate at the Attorney General’s Office, Edward Robert Campbell, told the AP that the six arrested, all of Cuban origin, could face terrorism charges, which carries a possible sentence of 30 years in prison, life imprisonment or even the death penalty, although the latter has been on moratorium for more than a decade.
The Associated Press was given access to Cuban military officials and shown the items displayed at the headquarters of the former Cuban Institute of Radio and Television ahead of a program that showed them to the public for the first time.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said it was not a U.S. government operation and that the American government was gathering its own information.