Hostage killed in foiled Cuban plane hijacking

[Pieter C. 5]

Hostage Killed In Foiled Cuban Plane Hijacking

 

May 4, 2007

Two Cuban army deserters tried to hijack a passenger plane to escape to the United States with hostages on Thursday but were arrested after killing an unarmed military officer on board, the Cuban government said.

 

The soldiers, who fled from an army base where they were doing military service, commandeered a city bus with several passengers before dawn, drove it onto the tarmac of Havana Airport's domestic terminal and seized an empty airliner.

 

They killed one hostages, army Lt. Col. Victor Ibo Acuna, when he tried to stop the hijacking, but were then captured by security forces, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

 

"Effective and coordinated action allowed security forces to frustrate the kidnappers' plans and save the lives of the other hostages," it said.

 

The two young men had been on the run since escaping on Sunday from an army base with two AK-47 rifles. They shot dead a soldier and wounded another in their escape. A third deserter was arrested earlier, the government said.

 

Cuba blamed the attempted hijacking on the US policy of encouraging Cubans to escape to the United States by offering them virtually automatic residency.

 

"The responsibility for these new murders falls on the highest US authorities, adding to a long list of terrorist acts that Cuba has been victim of for almost half a century," the government said.

 

Armed hijackings are rare in Cuba. In March 2003, two domestic passenger planes were hijacked to Key West, Florida. A month later, three men who hijacked a Havana Bay ferry in a bid to cross the Florida Straits were executed by firing squad.

 

The soldiers deserted from an army base in Managua, about 25 km south of Havana, home to one of Cuba's largest tank regiments.

 

A leaflet distributed earlier this week by police searching for the fugitive recruits in Havana identified them as Alain Forbus, 19, Yoan Torres, 21, and Leandro Cerezo, 19, from the eastern province of Camaguey.

 

It said they had abandoned their guard posts at the tank base and were armed and dangerous.

 

The plane they seized was a Boeing 737 owned by Spain's Hola Airlines and leased to Cuba's national carrier, Cubana, for flight to Venezuela, an airline source said.

 

In December, three recruits killed two officers and escaped from an army unit in eastern Cuba with their weapons, but were quickly captured and are awaiting trial, according to Cuba's main human rights group.

 

(Reuters)