By Gail Epstein Nieves . [email protected]. Wednesday,
March 14, 2001. Miami Herald
Memories of the Cold War came alive in the Cuban spy trial Tuesday, when
anti-Castro crusader José Basulto insinuated that a defense lawyer was a
Communist, the defense called the comment "red-baiting,'' and the judge
tried to fix it all with a civics lesson about constitutional rights to a "vigorous
defense.''
And that wasn't all.
Basulto, completing his second day as a hostile defense witness, proudly
proclaimed: "Violators of the Neutrality Act are, in my eyes, patriots.''
The Neutrality Act forbids any U.S. citizen from taking hostile action
against a foreign country not at war with this nation. It's typically used to
prosecute people who plot to kill foreign leaders or who ship weapons abroad to
insurrections.
Still, Basulto insisted that he and Brothers to the Rescue -- the
rafter-rescue group he co-founded -- were peaceful and not "linked to any
kind of violence toward Cuba.''
He steadfastly denied a series of accusations lobbied by defense lawyer Paul
McKenna, who sought to link Basulto with assorted plans to kill Cuban leader
Fidel Castro.
The alleged plots included one to drop "anti-personnel'' weapons into
Cuba, another to purchase a Czech fighter jet and another to smuggle other
weapons and explosives into the island nation.
Also on the alleged list: to sabotage a high-voltage tower in San Nicolás
de Bari in 1993 and an oil refinery in Cienfuegos in 1994.
The source of McKenna's information? Federal-agent interviews with Juan
Pablo Roque, a Cuban double-defector who infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue and
became an FBI informant before fleeing back to Havana the day before the Feb.
24, 1996 Cuban shoot-down of two Brothers planes.
Basulto scoffed at Roque's accusations, blaming the Cuban spy for "inventing''
and elaborating the schemes simply to get Brothers involved "in something
illegal'' and to make the group look bad.
Trial evidence has shown that discrediting Brothers was one of the main
missions of La Red Avispa, or the Wasp Network, the group of Cuban intelligence
agents whose are on trial. Roque was among those charged.
Basulto blamed Roque so often that McKenna adopted a standing question: "Did
Mr. Roque make you do that?''
Growing irritated, Basulto turned to address U.S. District Judge Joan
Lenard.
"Your honor, may I say at this point that I feel the accused in this
trial is Brothers to the Rescue and myself, not the gentlemen here?'' Basulto
said, referring to the five men on trial.
"You are here to answer questions,'' the judge told him. "Speeches
are not appropriate, Mr. Basulto.''
Later, McKenna asked whether Basulto had traveled to Cancun, Mexico. Had he
met with the brother of a Cuban military officer to discuss smuggling weapons
into Cuba? With a member of a Cuban orchestra? With someone from the National
Action Party (PAN), the party of Mexican president Vicente Fox?
No, Basulto testified. He said he went to Cancun to have fun.
And then, in an outburst aimed at McKenna, he asked: "Sir, are you
doing the work of the intelligence service of Cuba?''
Basulto's words brought the trial to a halt. The judge told the jury to
ignore the testimony. She sent the jurors out and turned to Basulto.
"Mr. Basulto, that was not an appropriate remark to Mr. McKenna. I am
ordering you not to make any more remarks like that before the jury,'' she said.
"These defendants, like any defendants in the United States, are
entitled to counsel and a vigorous defense. . . . That is what makes this
country so great. . . . [McKenna] is doing his job.''
After a short break, McKenna and lawyer Joaquín Méndez, who
represents another co-defendant, revisited the topic outside the jury's
presence.
"I am not a Communist, and I am not a spy,'' McKenna protested, saying
his credibility had taken a "blow to the solar plexus.'' Méndez
called Basulto's utterance "red-baiting'' that could make jurors fearful of
acquitting the defendants lest the jurors face the same accusation.
"You can't function in this town if you've been labeled a Communist,
especially by someone of Mr. Basulto's stature,'' Méndez argued.
The judge told jurors that Basulto's comment was "inappropriate and
unfounded.''
McKenna's client, accused spy ringleader Gerardo Hernández, faces
life in prison if convicted of murder conspiracy for helping Cuba shoot-down the
two Brothers planes over the Florida Straits. Four fliers died; Basulto's plane
alone was spared.
McKenna's defense strategy is to portray Basulto as a terrorist who "provoked''
Havana into the shoot-down with a series of Cuban airspace violations and
alleged schemes for violence. Taken together, those factors made the shoot-down
a defensive act of war -- not a quadruple murder, McKenna argues.
Basulto acknowledged violating Cuban airspace three times -- April 17 and
Nov. 10 of 1994 and July 13, 1995 -- but denied doing so on other dates. He
specifically denied crossing into Cuban territory on the shoot-down day,
although investigators agree he did.
"If it happened, it was drifting, inadvertent,'' he said.
McKenna showed jurors videotaped instances of Cuban MiGs ing by the
Brothers' planes. Instead of flying away, Basulto got on his radio and exhorted
the MiG pilots to overthrow Castro.
"You ignored the MiG, didn't you?'' McKenna asked.
"I didn't ignore them, sir,'' Basulto said. "I was there to
present the people of Cuba with a message.''
Basulto also acknowledged that he routinely ignored warnings from Cuban air
controllers against entering restricted zones established by the Cuban military.
Though the zones are north of Cuba's 12-mile territorial limit, other pilots
have testified they would have avoided going through them.
"I realized these zones were activated only when Brothers to the Rescue
happened to be in the area for humanitarian missions,'' he testified.
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