Cuba says two of the ten Cuban expats accused of taking part in a shootout with Cuba’s coast guard on Wednesday were already on the regime's terrorist watch list — and one of them recently posted a video calling Cuban exiles cowards and urging them to die to free the communist island.
Cuban officials say four expats were killed and six captured after their Florida-registered speed boat was stopped off the northwest coast of Cuba and they fired on the coast guard vessel.
Cuba accuses them of infiltrating the island to commit terrorism. Among those Cuba says are in custody are Amijail Sanchez and Leordan Cruz — who were already on a list of more than 60 persons wanted in Cuba for terrorism.
Cuba has not provided photo or video evidence of its claims about Wednesday's incident and who it arrested, and U.S. officials have yet to confirm or deny them.
READ MORE: What to know about the boat shooting in Cuban waters that killed 4
But in an Instagram video posted this month, Sanchez calls himself the leader of a group called the People’s Self-Defense and says he is "ready to die" to free Cuba from its repressive and disastrous communist rule.
“God gave me a new life to do what I have to do,” Sanchez says in the video posted Feb. 11.
But he spends the lion's share of his rambling, expletive-laden speech condemning Cuban exile leaders in the U.S. for not sharing that courage.
“Don’t tell me you want to be President of Cuba,” Sanchez tells them. “You don’t have the cojones ... to do what had to be done over the past 67 years” since the Castro regime took power.
Sanchez, who according to his Facebook page is 47, lives in Miami and hails from Cuba's Camagüey province, also say he's grateful for being able to live in the U.S. It's unclear when he came to the U.S.
His social media accounts are full of images and videos involving armed conflict and envisioned attacks to bring down Cuba's regime.
Cuba's terror suspects list, published last July, connected Sanchez to "the arrest of a Cuban resident in the United States who brought firearms, ammunition and other equipment to the coast of Matanzas province with the purpose of carrying out terrorist acts in military units ... plans organized, financed and assisted from U.S. territory by citizens of that country."
As for Cruz, Cuba placed him on the list for what it called "acts of sabotage in the Villa Clara province, for which he was detained and criminally prosecuted as a Cuban national."
But Cuba's account of Wednesday's events, and those it says were involved, was thrown somewhat into question when the Spain-based Cuban media outlet El Toque released an interview with a man who said he's Roberto Azcorra Consuegra — one of the six Cuban expats Cuba said it captured after the shootout.
Azcorra insisted he's in Miami and not in custody in Cuba.
The drama is playing out amid already strained U.S.-Cuba relations after the Trump administration recently closed off oil shipments to the island to pressure the communist regime.
Many Cuban exiles say they believe the regime is now on the brink of collapse — and they're hoping to see Cubans on the island rise up as a result.
