Spy testimony heated
BY GAIL EPSTEIN NIEVES
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 support
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
members 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 passing 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.