Two of the men that the Cuban government said were aboard a boat intercepted amid gunfire off Cuba\u2019s coast on Wednesday \u2014 including one who was killed \u2014 were from Tampa, according to former associates.<\/p>\n
Michael Ortega Casanova and Leo Enrique Cruz G\u00f3mez were named by Cuban officials as being among 10 passengers on the Florida-registered boat. The Cuban government described the incident as a \u201cterrorist infiltration\u201d in which four people were killed and six others were detained.<\/p>\n
Ortega Casanova was one of the men killed, according to the government, while Cruz G\u00f3mez \u2014 who had been on Cuba\u2019s wanted list for terrorism \u2014 was detained.<\/p>\n
Both men took part in meetings at Casa Cuba de Tampa, an anti-communist Cuban group, according to Rene Montes de Oca, the group\u2019s vice president.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth were always very firm in their convictions and believed that to bring down the Cuban government you had to fight with weapons,\u201d he said. \u201cPersonally, I was one of those who warned them many times that it was dangerous and could be a suicide mission.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ortega Casanova had been a leader with the Tampa chapter of the Republican Party of Cuba, Montes de Oca said, which met with Casa Cuba once a month to \u201ctalk about how to grow the Tampa Republican Party and how to bring in more members.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cruz G\u00f3mez didn\u2019t come as often, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeo liked guns, he liked to go hunting,\u201d Montes de Oca said.<\/p>\n
The Cuban government\u2019s terrorism list said Cruz G\u00f3mez was wanted for \u201cinitiating sabotage activities in the province of Villa Clara,\u201d which led to detention and criminal charges.<\/p>\n
Montes de Oca said he considered the men\u2019s views to be \u201clegitimate, even if we had different points of view about possible change in Cuba.\u201d<\/p>\n
L\u00e1zaro Delgado, a former member of Tampa\u2019s Republican Party of Cuba chapter, said that while Ortega Casanova had talked about owning guns, it was surprising to see him become part of this incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cMichele was never an activist in Cuba in the sense of going out into the streets and protesting, risking arrest,\u201d Delgado said. \u201cI never imagined he could get involved in something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cuban officials said in an initial statement that the boaters planned to \u201cinfiltrate Cuban territory for terrorist purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The statement said that when a Cuban coast guard vessel with five officers approached the boat to ask for identification, the men opened fire and wounded the vessel\u2019s commander. Cuban officials said they later seized assault rifles, homemade explosives and other tactical gear from the boat.<\/p>\n
\u201cCuba has a duty and responsibility to protect its territorial waters,\u201d Carlos Fern\u00e1ndez de Coss\u00edo, Cuba\u2019s deputy minister of foreign affairs, said in a statement Thursday afternoon. \u201cOur actions are consistent with international law, which applies to all countries, including the United States itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
The boat was reported stolen hours after the incident, according to the Monroe County Sheriff\u2019s Office. A man in Big Pine Key said he found out his boat had been involved in the incident after the Cuban government released its registration number, prompting calls from the media.<\/p>\n
U.S. officials have expressed some skepticism about Cuba\u2019s account of the incident, with U.S. Secretary of State Marcio Rubio saying the United States is conducting its own investigation to find out what happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know a whole lot of details and so I\u2019ll defer to the White House to provide more updates as we get them,\u201d said Vice President JD Vance. \u201cCertainly a situation that we\u2019re monitoring, hopefully it\u2019s not as bad as we fear it could be, but can\u2019t say more because I just don\u2019t know more.\u201d<\/p>\n
The situation, Montes de Oca said, has caused \u201cdeep shock in the Cuban exile community\u201d throughout Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew Michel directly as an open person, friendly man, someone who showed a lot of kindness and goodness,\u201d he said. \u201cSame with Leo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Montes de Oca said Casa Cuba has declared a period of mourning and lowered its flags to half mast.<\/p>\n
Information from the Miami Herald was used in this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two of the men that the Cuban government said were aboard a boat intercepted amid gunfire off Cuba\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[81417,1016,81415,63045,81413,81412,81416,81414,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-171130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-casa-cuba","tag-cuba","tag-cuban-flag","tag-cuban-government","tag-cuban-officials","tag-montes-de-oca","tag-ortega-casanova","tag-rene-montes-de-oca","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}