HAVANA (AP) — Top officers with Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior unveiled for the primary time late Friday the objects they mentioned had been aboard a Florida-flagged speedboat that opened hearth towards troops in waters off the island’s north coast this week, with troopers responding and killing 4 suspects.
Officials additionally revealed to The Associated Press that authorities had been in a position to set up that the ten Cuban suspects left the U.S. in two boats, however one failed, in order that they transferred all of the provides to the remaining one and left the opposite adrift.
The authorities mentioned the detained suspects revealed these particulars and burdened that they immediately contacted the U.S. Coast Guard.
Among the objects Cuban officers mentioned had been aboard the boat: a dozen high-powered weapons, together with one with a scope; a giant cooler full of greater than 12,800 items of ammunition; 11 pistols; heavy-duty boots, helmets with cameras; and camouflage backpacks.
“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 advised the AP.
According to Carballo, the 30-foot (9 meter) border patrol boat detected an intruder on Wednesday morning and approached to inside about 600 toes (185 meters) to analyze, but it surely was met with high-caliber gunfire.
He mentioned that three of the attackers had been instantly killed and {that a} fourth was wounded and later died.
Caraballo mentioned the speedboat was situated 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 many heads of Criminal Investigation for State Security on the Ministry of the Interior, advised the AP that authorities had been stunned by the resistance they encountered.
“We didn’t expect it, especially with that many people and weapons,” he mentioned.
“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 famous that officers detected 13 bullet holes on the border guard boat and 21 others on the suspect’s vessel, “meaning that there was combat.”
The Cuban authorities had reported Wednesday that an individual had been captured on land, however Álvarez mentioned that to date, there isn’t a info that the suspects had any help community on the island.
Cuba’s chief prosecutor of the directorate on the Attorney General’s Office, Edward Robert Campbell, advised the AP that the six arrested, all of Cuban origin, might face terrorism costs, which carries a doable sentence of 30 years in jail, life imprisonment and even the dying penalty, though the latter has been on moratorium for greater than a decade.
The Associated Press was given entry to Cuban navy officers and proven the objects displayed on the headquarters of the previous Cuban Institute of Radio and Television forward of a program that confirmed them to the general public for the primary time.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has mentioned it was not a U.S. authorities operation and that the American government was gathering its personal info.
