Thread: Cuban murder suspect may go free

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Cuban murder suspect may go free

Web Posted: 06/23/2006 12:00 AM CDT
Todd Bensman
Express-News Staff Writer


DALLAS - A refugee from Cuba who has been in a detention center since 2004 might have to be freed in about six months even though the government believes he committed murder on the high seas and remains a serious danger.

Orlando Requejo-Pupo was ordered deported by an immigration court judge Thursday, but he could avoid a forced exit if Cuba refuses to take him back, which is likely. Under federal law Requejo-Pupo must be released within six months from a detention center in Haskell, where he has been held while federal authorities investigated him for murder.

U.S. Immigration Judge Anthony Rogers also denied the Cuban’s application for political asylum, saying Requejo-Pupo likely “caused harm and possibly death” to the captain of the boat that carried him and four other Cuban refugees to the Texas Gulf coast in August 2004.

The refugees are the first known to have made a sea crossing from Cuba to Texas, more than 1,000 nautical miles aboard an 18-foot fiberglass sport fishing boat. But the novelty of their arrival and story of hardship quickly gave way to the intrigue of a murder investigation that has failed to produce any formal charges.

Requejo-Pupo sought political asylum as a means to permanent residency and eventually citizenship. He denied killing anyone and invoked the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when he took the stand during Thursday’s proceedings. He asked the judge to disregard the government’s allegations of murder as unproven rumors.

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But Rogers said he would not.

“I don’t think there’s anything political about you,” the judge said. “I don’t believe you’re entitled to political asylum, as a matter of discretion. I am not finding you guilty of anything, but I do believe your conduct is sufficiently established.”

Despite the government’s claims about him, Requejo-Pupo now seems likely to join thousands of other Cubans who have been ordered deported from America, most of them for having criminal convictions, but who still walk U.S. streets because their homeland won’t take them.

Saundra Arrington, assistant chief counsel of the Dallas-based offices of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said authorities will try to make the most of the six months they have to find a way to charge Requejo-Pupo in the death of the boat’s captain, Luis Estrada Sanchez-Core.

“Eventually, unless he is charged and convicted, it is possible that he could be released into our community, as the law stands,” Arrington said. “We have six months, plus whatever other time the law might allow. I never give up hope.”

In addition, Arrington said, the government also will consider undertaking a rare diplomatic effort to keep Requejo-Pupo off the streets of Texas. She said the U.S. government may ask the Cuban government to take Requejo-Pupo back and try him for the murder.

Only in a few unusually high-profile instances has Cuba taken in Cubans who have been ordered deported from the U.S. for having criminal convictions or falling short of moral turpitude standards, government and private immigration lawyers say.

The American investigation of Requejo-Pupo and the death of Sanchez-Core sometime during the two-month voyage has foundered.

Several months after Requejo-Pupo and the other four refugees landed half starved and severely dehydrated near Corpus Christi, immigration authorities detained him on technical immigration law violations while gathering evidence against him from the other refugees. But investigative agencies, including the FBI, have been unable to file murder charges because no one knows where in the ocean the crime occurred, thus whether U.S. courts have jurisdiction.

Government lawyers on Thursday presented one of three voyagers who claim they witnessed Requejo-Pupo and another refugee, Florida resident Zeidel Rivero Perez, take over the boat during a violent mutiny and later throw the boat’s captain overboard alive, with only an empty gas can to hold on to.

Aldo Mesa testified via teleconference from the U.S. attorney’s office in Naples, Fla., that Sanchez-Core’s screams for mercy went ignored as the boat drifted away from him one night. He said he was stabbed in several places during the mutiny and that all aboard were threatened with death if they ever told what happened to the captain.

“I heard, ‘No! No!’ and then he called my name,” Mesa recalled. “I couldn’t help. If I helped him they’d kill me too.”

Arrington also presented transcripts of conversations between Requejo-Pupo and U.S.-based relatives, recorded at the detention facility, that she said show a conspiracy to get at least one of the voyagers to alter testimony about the death.

Requejo-Pupo claimed the other passengers are lying and that Mesa testified against him to settle an old grudge. Both acknowledged they served five years in Cuban prisons for stealing and selling government beef.

Mesa said he informed the family of Sanchez-Core about his fate at sea. He has told the Express-News that Sanchez-Core’s extended family in Cuba, including a wife and daughter, is angry and wants justice.

While in detention, Requejo-Pupo has embarked on a new endeavor. He said he is writing a book about the voyage.


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tbensman@express-news.net
To see earlier stories on this case, go to MySA.com, keyword: Cubans


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avoid a forced exit if Cuba refuses to take him back

This angers me! Why should a dictator tell us what to do? This happened not to long ago with some of the Mariel criminals. Castro refused them after one of our judges said they couldn't be held anymore. Immediately upon release, one of the murderers came to Miami, and within hours, had gotten a gun, robbed and shot someone.

My solution: take them to Guantanamo and kick 'em out the back door.