Cuba fires on suspected people smugglers, one dead

HAVANA
by Anthony Boadle
Cuba's coast guard shot and killed one of three suspected people smugglers aboard a U.S.-registered speedboat as it approached the island to pick up a group of Cubans, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

The officials confirmed a report in Cuba's state-run Granma newspaper that the two surviving migrant smugglers, one of whom was wounded, are American citizens, but did not comment on the dead man's nationality.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the shooting was "deeply disturbing" and Washington would be very worried if the dead man was a U.S. citizen.

"If you have an American citizen who's been shot and killed, I think that that is a deeply disturbing matter. And we would be very concerned about that," he said in Washington.

The shooting occurred early on Wednesday when Cuban coast guard patrol boats intercepted the 40-foot (12-meter) launch off the south coast of the western province of Pinar del Rio.

The coast guard opened fire when the smugglers refused to stop their speedboat and rammed a Cuban patrol boat, according to Granma, the newspaper of Cuba's ruling Communist Party.

One of the wounded men, who lacked documents and has not been identified, died later in hospital, Granma said.

The other smugglers are Cuban-Americans and had U.S. passports in the names of Rafael Mesa Farinas and Rosendo Salgado Castro, it said.

The newspaper said the speedboat was registered in Florida and owned by John Roberto, a Cuban American known as "Blue Shark." The paper said the smugglers had planned to ferry the would-be migrants to Mexico.

Police arrested 39 people, including 12 women and seven children, on suspicion of trying to leave Cuba illegally, Granma said. Some were later released.

"This incident shows the aggressiveness and lack of scruples of these smugglers who put the lives of innocent people at risk," Col. Jorge Samper, the coast guard's deputy commander, told Reuters.
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