Representatives from the Cuban government claim that a man who improperly entered the area last year on a jet skiing carrying five firearms was a part of a terrorist plot carried out by a group of Cubans in the United States, despite providing some information about such a story.
According to a top criminal-investigations officer at Cuba’s Ministry of Interior, Col. Victor Alvarez Valle, who has been a resident there since 2014, Ardenys Garcia Alvarez attempted to enter the country in November with the “intention to commit violent works” on state broadcast on Monday night.
Garcia Alvarez arrived on the Matanzas coastline east of Havana on a Jet Ski with a Florida registration number, carrying the weapons, weapons and “other military tools”, including a ski helmet and glasses, the captain said.
According to a cause with knowledge of the case, Garcia Alvarez is being held at the famous high-security jail Combinado del Este in Havana.
Although some of the boats can go as fast as 70 miles and go as far as 150 miles on a tank of gas, Cuban officials did not specify where the airplane snow departed from, which would allow a rider to go the 90-mile journey to Havana from Key West, the island’s closest point, in less than two hours in perfect conditions.
Cuban authorities claimed last December that a terrorist plan had been thwarted, but they did not provide any details at the time.
The senior Interior Ministry official claimed on television that” this action was organized and financed by a group of Cuban terrorists based in the United States.” Both Cubans who live in Florida named William Cabrera Gonzalez and Jorge Luis Fernandez Figueras as individuals who were involved in the scheme.
Both men are reportedly members of a group called La Nueva Nación Cubana en Armas, the new Cuban nation in arms, whose members support regime change in Cuba through an armed uprising, according to social media accounts. One of the numerous videos Cabrera Gonzalez posted on social media calling for the violent overthrow of the Cuban government was a clip of a member of the group reading a portion of their manifesto, which was also shown on Cuban television.
Cabrera Gonzalez and Fernandez Figueras did not respond to comments on the message boards. Their names were listed in a contentious list of Cubans accused of being behind or encouraging terrorism that the Cuban government released last year. Numerous activists and journalists who are opposed to the Cuban government were included in the list.
The chief of the crime-fighting division at Cuba’s Office of the Attorney General, Edward Roberts Campbell, said on the television show that Garcia Alvarez and others involved in the plan had the intention to” subvert” Cuba’s “economic and social order”.
According to the Cuban prosecutor, they could be accused of crimes against the state and” crimes associated with terrorism because of their motivations, means, and objectives.” He continued, stating that Cuban law applies to both those who operate on the national island and those who seek assistance from abroad.
The final plan was not disclosed by the officials. And they did not disclose any evidence of Gonzalez’s and Fernandez’s role.
Garcia Alvarez Alvarez, the colonel of the Interior Ministry, claimed Garcia Alvarez “arranged plans by talking to some people” and “made observations… of places where weapons might be stored or where military training takes place.” What Garcia Alvarez was planning to do next, according to the official, who did not give a specific date.
Garcia Alvarez did not specify what he wanted to do in Cuba in an edited statement that was broadcast on Cuban television on Monday.
He claimed to have been hired by La Nueva Nación Cubana and that he had gone to shooting ranges in Naples to train. However, he did not provide any additional information regarding the group’s involvement in the alleged plot. At one point, he said he only knew Fernandez Higueras by his nickname, El Lobo, the wolf.
According to the Interior Ministry colonel, the interior ministry also broadcast an edited statement from Garcia Alvarez’s father in Cuba and another man who were both detained for collaborating with him. In a nation under strict government surveillance, they gave broad definitions of Garcia Alvarez’s plan without providing specifics about what he intended to accomplish or how to go about doing it.
Rigoberto Garcia Avila, Garcia Alvarez’s father, stated that his son wanted to “recruit people to prepare conditions for… assaulting a military unit, to arm those people… and find a truck and buy a farm to gather the people there.”
Pavel Fernandez Alonso, the other Cuban detainee, claimed Garcia Alvarez informed him of a different man who was “recreating a movement and organizing in a farm he was going to buy.” He then suggested that there were still no ideas for what to do next. He stated that “preparations would be made” at the farm and that a decision on” when they would act” would also be made.
Garcia Alvarez, a truck driver who was detained in New Mexico in August 2023 on suspicion of” conspiracy to transport aliens” and” conspiracy to harbor aliens,” along with five other defendants, was missing from Cuban television’s background information.
His case was then transferred to El Paso, Texas, where he lived. He was free on bond, provided that he obtain employment and enroll in a substance abuse program. He is not a U. S. citizen and had to surrender his Cuban passport, meaning he could not travel to Cuba legally.
His defense lawyer in the U. S., Jose Montes, said he learned in November that his client had been arrested in Cuba, and his U. S. case is on hold for the time being.
The accusations in Cuba have received skepticism in Miami, where Miami residents have complained that the alleged plot seems absurd and might distract from the third anniversary of the 2021 protests on July 11.
Officials in Cuba have already used the case to protest Cuba’s inclusion on the United States ‘ list of countries that support terrorism.
In a post on X, Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero wrote,” Clear evidence once again shows that terrorist plans against our country are directed and funded by# USA.” Who then ought to be listed among the state’s sponsors of terrorism?
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