http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/11749230.htm

Posted on Fri, May. 27, 2005

KEY WEST

Two charged in migrant case

BY JENNIFER BABSON

jbabson@herald.com

KEY WEST - Federal authorities are investigating a migrant-smuggling run in which a Cuban man reportedly died just off Cuba late Tuesday or early Wednesday.

The man is believed to have drowned after smugglers left him in the water and fled to Florida when a Cuban patrol vessel approached their boat before the man could climb aboard.

''We did receive a report from Cuban authorities regarding a migrant-smuggling event that they reported did involve a death of a migrant,'' Lt. Tony Russell, a Coast Guard spokesman, said late Thursday. ``The details of that report are similar to the landing that took place in the Marquesas.''

Two Miami-area men -- Elio Diaz-Hernandez, the boat's captain, and Edel Domingo-Carvajal, a crewman -- were taken into custody Wednesday after grounding a speedboat on an island in the Marquesas island chain off Key West.

Capt. Phil Heyl, commander of U.S. Coast Guard Group Key West -- which took the men and their passengers ashore -- declined to comment on the reported death off Cuba.

The boat's 30 passengers -- including the dead man's wife -- were in U.S. Border Patrol custody in Pembroke Pines on Thursday. Some have confirmed the sequence of events to investigators, officials said.

Diaz-Hernandez and Domingo-Carvajal were charged with alien smuggling at their first court appearance in Key West on Thursday, the U.S. attorney's office said.

Both men were granted bail but remained at the Monroe County Detention Center Thursday night.