Cuban officer killed in failed hijack attempt at Havana airport
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| Published on Friday, May 4, 2007 |
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By Isabel Sanchez
HAVANA, Cuba (AFP): A Cuban officer was killed on Thursday by two military deserters who tried to hijack an airplane at Havana's airport on Thursday and flee to the United States, the interior ministry said.
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The airplane, which two Cuban deserters tried to hijack, remains under guard at the Jose Marti international airport in Havana.
AFP PHOTO |
Armed with AK-47 rifles, the two deserters entered the airport at dawn in a bus with several hostages and boarded a parked plane without crew or passengers, the ministry said in a statement.
"Once in the airplane, the two murderers killed one of the hostages," identified as Lieutenant-Colonel Victor Acuna Velazquez, the ministry said.
Velazquez "tried heroically to stop the terrorist act" even though he had been disarmed, the statement said.
The ministry also said the two deserters on Sunday had killed a soldier and wounded another when they fled their military unit 25 kilometers (15 miles) from Havana.
Witnesses described a "fierce" gun battle as the deserters tried to take over a Boeing 737 in Jose Marti airport's Terminal 2, from where charter flights head to Miami and New York.
"Now everything is under control, but there was a fierce gunfight," an airport source said.
"The plane had arrived from Santiago (Cuba) and fortunately all the passengers had already gotten off. Only the crew were left, who then escaped through the front hatch.
They were thinking the kidnappers wanted to leave the country," the source said.
A third deserter had been captured beforehand and "revealed their goal was to leave the country illegally," the interior ministry said.
Public notices with photos of the three deserters were posted around Havana and security had been stepped up at the airport, according to witnesses.
The men were described in public notices as "dangerous subjects in possession of firearms."
At the airport, soldiers from the country's special forces in red berets guarded the area where the deserters had tried force their way in and bullet marks were visible near a door leading to the runway.
In 2003, a Russia AN-24 with 31 people aboard was taken over and forced to fly to the United States by a man armed with grenades, who was ultimately detained without incident after the plan landed in Key West, Florida.
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