Caribbean Net News: Cuba migrant died after chase, Florida court hears

KEY WEST, USA (Reuters): A Cuban woman died of blunt head trauma she suffered as migrant smugglers sought to escape the Coast Guard in a high-speed chase, a Florida medical examiner testified this week in the opening of a migrant smuggling trial.

Cuban Amil Gonzalez Rodriguez, 32, is one of three men charged with one count of involuntary manslaughter in a 68-count indictment after a migrant smuggling trip aboard a 36-foot speedboat that raced from Cuba to 4 miles south of Boca Chica, near Key West, on July 8.

The speedboat carried 31 migrants, including Anay Machado Gonzalez, 24, who died as US Coast Guard officers transported her to land about an hour after disabling the smuggling boat.

"This case is about a conspiracy to smuggle Cubans," Assistant US Attorney Jaime Raich said during opening statements.

Hundreds of Cubans leave their communist-ruled Caribbean homeland each year seeking better living conditions in the United States. They frequently try to cross the Florida Straits on speedboats in organized smuggling operations.

Prosecutors said Gonzalez waved a flashlight to signal the smuggling vessel ashore in Cuba. The boat was equipped with three powerful 250-horsepower engines, satellite phone, global positioning system and 22 fuel canisters. The migrants did not wear life jackets.

US Coast Guard petty officer Jason Holmes testified that Gonzalez, the defendant, laughed and made obscene hand gestures during the high-speed chase.

"The Coast Guard boarding team found migrants thrown about to the point of total exhaustion," Holmes said.

Reviewing six autopsy photos of Machado's bruised body and bloodied face, Monroe County Medical Examiner Michael Hunter attributed her death to "blunt force head trauma" caused by banging her head and body on the boat.

Defense attorneys said their client was not a smuggler but a migrant seeking freedom.

"He tried to make it to the United States to the land of freedom," said defense attorney Irving Gonzalez.

If convicted before US District Judge Michael Moore, Gonzalez faces a maximum life in prison.

Two other defendants, Heinrich Castillo Diaz, 28, and Rolando Gonzalez Delgado, 20, pleaded guilty last week and face sentencing on January 8.

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