The communist regime in Cuba said on Wednesday after the deadly attack that the boat intercepted in the island’s territorial waters was transporting “armed” people who intended to carry out an “infiltration for terrorist purposes.”
Ortega Casanova’s objective “was to go fight against a criminal and murderous narcotyranny, to see if that lit the spark and the people rose up and supported them,” Wilfredo Beyra, head of the Tampa Republican Party of Cuba, an opposition organization based in Florida to which the deceased belonged, told the AFP news agency by telephone.
“I had warned him that it was not the time to take those types of actions for the freedom of Cuba, that we had to wait,” according to Beyra.
Ten people were traveling on the boat. Ortega Casanova, a 54-year-old truck driver according to the American press, was the only one of the four dead identified by the La Hana regime, which also released the names of the six wounded.
He wanted the freedom of Cuba
Beyra, who had known Ortega Casanova for four or five years, last spoke with him about 10 days ago.
“In Florida, several groups openly state that they are willing, through military training, to fight for the freedom of their homeland. And Michel was from one of those groups,” he stated.
Regarding the date to take action, Beyra said that Ortega Casanova had told him “that it could be at any time.”
Beyra also knows a person on the injured list, Leordan Enrique Cruz Gómez, whom she met at a political event in Miami a year ago.
Since then he maintained contact with him through calls and messages, the last of which was 10 days ago.
Investigation
On Wednesday, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced the opening of a judicial investigation into what happened, assuring that “the Cuban government is not trustworthy.”
Tensions between Washington and Havana have intensified in recent weeks, amid the oil embargo imposed by US President Donald Trump.
The owner of the boat speaks
The owner of the American ship involved in the incident in Cuba that left four dead stated that it was stolen in Florida, in addition to questioning Havana’s version of the operation, according to local media reported this Thursday.
The man, who was born in Cuba and did not identify himself for privacy, told influencer Eliecer Ávila from Miami that he was surprised to learn that his boat was involved in Wednesday’s operation on the island because, he asserted, “a boy” who works at his company stole the boat.
“This took us completely by surprise because we know the boy as a noble, quiet, calm person,” he said in an audio that was also broadcast by Univision.
“We still don’t know if the boy who stole the boat is dead, is he alive, that is completely under investigation, now we don’t know anything,” added the man, who described the vehicle as a “domestic fishing boat” rather than a “speed boat.”
The owner is a 65-year-old man who reported the vehicle stolen from a dock in the Florida Keys once authorities contacted him after Wednesday’s incident, according to reports from Fox News and News Nation, which cited law enforcement sources.
For now, they do not consider him a suspect in the investigation, although FBI agents went to a house in the Miami metropolitan area to talk to him, according to local affiliates of Telemundo, NBC and ABC.
Cuba’s version questioned
The Cuban questioned the version of the Ministry of the Interior (Minint), which on Wednesday reported four dead crew members and six wounded in an operation because the ship did not obey when they asked it to stop in territorial waters and fired at the Cuban police vessel.
“The boat that happened there in Cuba is a boat belonging to our family, it is a totally family boat, nor is it a speed boat,” he said.
“It’s a little fishing boat. Why tell you that? That’s playing ball with a ball and you batting with a board. “That’s an abuse, what they did.”he added.
A search for the vessel registration FL7726SH shows in Florida public records that it is a 1981 boat, with a length of 24 feet or 7.31 meters.
The incident caused a new clash between Washington and Cuba, where the designated ruler of Castroism Miguel Díaz-Canel assured this Thursday that his country will defend itself from “any terrorist aggression”, while the Secretary of State of the United States, Marco Rubio, warned on Wednesday that his country will respond accordingly.
Rubio and Florida lawmakers have called for independent verification of what happened in Cuba.
For example, Roberto Azcorra Consuegra, whom the Cuban regime included among the six injured in the operation, assured that he is in the United States and that he did not participate in that event.
