Six Cubans Convicted in Plane Hijacking

[Osolomia]

By ABBY GOODNOUGH
New Yotk Times
December 11, 2003

KEY WEST, Fla., Dec. 11 — Six Cuban men were convicted today of hijacking a commercial airliner from Cuba to Key West in a case that heightened tensions between the White House and Cubans in both Havana and South Florida.

Prosecutors had argued that the six hijackers used knives and an ax to take control of a flight from the Isle of Youth, off the southern coast of Cuba, to Havana on March 19. American fighter jets intercepted the plane and escorted it to Key West International Airport. None of the 31 passengers or 6 crew members were injured.

... This case was viewed as a test of the United States' commitment to aggressively prosecute hijackers no matter which country they come from. The presiding judge, James Lawrence King of Federal District Court, ruled last month that defense lawyers could not refer to Cuba's political or economic conditions.

Cuban exile leaders had argued that the United States should be lenient with the defendants because they were seeking freedom. Under the "wet foot, dry foot" policy, Cubans who arrive on American soil can stay in the United States. Those intercepted en route are returned.

More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/11/national/11CND-HIJA.html?ex=1071810000&en=831861956862cb24&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

[Judi Lynn]

1. Spectacular news to anyone who has watched "exile" justice in Florida

It's simply amazing that the _Bushes couldn't find a way to influence the outcome of this trial, through coersion. Undoubtedly the Miami Mafia expected this one would go the way of ALL THE OTHERS tried in Florida, just like it.

I would pray this is a shadow of things to come, that the corner has been turned, and the whole country, REGARDLESS of _Bush and his thug pets in the Miami Mafia, is moving toward normalizing relations and cleaning up AMERICA'S record against Cuba.

Better by god late than never!

[Osolomia]

2. More evidence that the Miami mafia's power is waning

despite the persistent pandering to them by presidential candidates.

[Judi Lynn]

3. I'd love to have a front row seat when they finally see it's gone! n/t

[Judi Lynn]

4. Here's the Miami Herald's treatment of the story:

(snip) Posted on Thu, Dec. 11, 2003

Six Cuban men found guilty of hijacking
BY CARA BUCKLEY
[e-mail]

KEY WEST - A jury convicted six Cuban men this afternoon of hijacking a passenger plane from Havana and commandeering it to Key West.

After deliberating for six hours over two days, the 12-member jury found all six men guilty of air piracy. The convicted hijackers -- Alexis Norniella Morales, Eduardo Mejia Morales, Yainer Olivares Samon, Neudis Infantes Hernandez, Alvenis Arias Izquierdo and Miakel Guerra Morales -- face a minimum of 20 years in prison on the air piracy charge and a maximum of life in prison.

In a rare show of cooperation with U.S. prosecutors, Cuban authorities allowed some of the crewmembers aboard the plane to return to South Florida to testify against the six defendants.

Pilot Daniel Blas Corria Sánchez told the jury that Norniella, the accused ringleader, burst into the cockpit minutes before the DC-3 was to land in Havana from Nueva Gerona on Cuba's Isle of Youth. Corría said Norniella held a knife to his throat and ordered him to divert the plane to Florida. Another crewmember testified that some of the hijackers said they were holding women and children against their will in the passenger cabin. (snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/7468850.htm

(Not TOOOO sympathetic to the criminals, is it? Good gawdalmighty! These poor, poor freedom seekers and their martyred wives.)

No one can accuse the Miami Herald of being too objective for its own good!

[Mika]

5. A conviction in S Florida? AMAZING!

Good! The worm is turning on these hijacking scum. :party:


It is far past time to end the sanctions on Cuba and Americans now!

[Osolomia]

6. It's a major historical breakthrough

especially considering Judge King's record on the subject.

Would they have been convicted if the 9-11 hijackings hadn't occurred?

Reports of the stepped up enforcement of the travel restrictions on Cuban-Americans is another sign that their 40 years of preferential treatment above the law in the USA is no longer acceptable.

[0007]

7. I sure hope your right - it has been one long haul!

[Scurrilous]

8. The Miami Cuban Mafia needs to lobby...

...their amigos in the BFEE to have future hijacked Cuban airplanes escorted directly to Miami rather than Key West. The hijackers would never be convicted by a Miami jury.

[Judi Lynn]

9. Only in Miami would you EVER see an article like this

Bitching and whining about the legally correct guilty finding on six armed Cuban hijackers. They are so used to having South Florida courts bend over for them, they're nearly hysterical when a trial actually turned out right, legally and morally:

Posted on Sat, Dec. 13, 2003

KEY WEST
Hijack verdict a personal one for courtroom
(snip) Lawyers defending six Cuban men convicted of air piracy identify with their clients because of their own families' passage into exile.
By CARA BUCKLEY
[e-mail]

KEY WEST - Defense lawyers fought back tears.(:cry:) Family members strained to understand snippets of a foreign process played out in a foreign tongue. And one little girl, dressed in her Sunday best and squirming on a hard courtroom bench, wondered why she was not allowed to run into her father's arms. (:nopity:)

For the people who knew and loved the six Cuban men tried and convicted Thursday for hijacking a DC-3 aircraft to Key West, the eight-day trial resonated infinitely deeper than the antiseptic theater of legal motions, objections and denials that formed the trial's building blocks.

For three-quarters of the defense team, representing six young Cubans desperate to flee their homeland was deeply personal, and wounding.

''It could have been my son,'' Israel Encinosa, the lawyer for Alvenis Arias Izquierdo, said Wednesday, eyes reddened, moments after delivering his closing argument to the jury. (snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/7482266.htm

You can be sure they'll try to get their champions, either _{Jeb Bush} or _{the pResident} pardon these buttheads.