Death penalty applied to main ferry hijackers for terrorist crimes
ON April 5, as was announced at the due time, the individuals responsible for the hijacking and attempted violent rerouting to the United States of the Baraguá ferry were brought before the Crimes against State Security courtroom in City of Havana People’s Court. This hijacking was accompanied by extreme violence and death threats to the crew and passengers on board the ferry in service in the Bay of Havana, and gravely endangered the lives of dozens of people taken hostage who were at the point of perishing when, 30 miles from our coast, the vessel, designed for navigating in off-shore waters, ran out of fuel in a force-four sea and could easily have sunk before the arrival of the Border Patrol units to lend assistance.
The Court applied the summary proceedings system laid down in Articles 479 and 480 of the Criminal Law Procedures, with full respect for the guarantees and basic rights of the accused.
The trial concluded on April 8.
The court considered as proven the facts, which constitute the grave crimes of terrorism established in the Law 93 against Acts of Terrorism of December 24, 2001, in virtue of which, and taking into account the elevated social danger of the acts as well as individual responsibility, degree of participation and the criminal records of the accused, gave the following sentences:
Capital punishment: Lorenzo Enrique Copello Castillo, Bárbaro Leodán Sevilla García and Jorge Luis Martínez Isaac, the three principal, most active and brutal hijacker ringleaders.
Life imprisonment: Maikel Delgado Aramburo, Yoanny Thomas González, Harold Alcalá Aramburo and Ramón Henry Grillo.
30 years’ imprisonment: Wilmer Ledea Pérez.
Five years’ imprisonment: Ana Rosa Ledea Ríos.
Three years’ imprisonment: Yolanda Pando Rizo.
Two years’ imprisonment: Dania Rojas Góngora.
The three men given the death sentence were allocated the immediate recourse to appeal to the People’s Supreme Court, the maximum agency of justice, which duly held a new trial in which the sentence was ratified.
The maximum penalty sentences were subsequently officially referred to the consideration of the Council of State. During a lengthy meeting called to this effect the collective discussed in all detail the proven facts giving rise to the sentence, the gravity of the same, and the potential danger they implied for both the lives of a large number of innocent persons and for the security of the country, subjected to a sinister plan of provocations hatched by the most extremist sectors of the U.S. government and its allies among the Miami terrorist mafia, with the sole objective of creating conditions and pretexts for attacking our homeland, which will be defended at any price necessary. The Council of State viewed the sentences as absolutely just and the decisions of both courts in strict adherence to the laws, and ratified the sentences.
At dawn today, the sanctions were applied.
April 11, 2003. 10:30 a.m. local time.