4 killed in speedboat shooting were trying to infiltrate Cuba, government says
· Toronto Sun
The Cuban government says 10 passengers on a boat that shot at its soldiers were armed Cubans living in the United States who were trying to infiltrate the island.
The late Wednesday announcement came hours after the country said its soldiers killed four and wounded six others aboard a speed boat registered in Florida that had entered Cuban waters and started shooting on the soldiers first, injuring one Cuban officer.
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The majority of the 10 aboard the boat “have a known history of criminal and violent activity,” Cuba’s government said.
The country’s Interior Ministry provided few details about the shooting, noting the boat was about 1.6 kilometres north of Cayo Falcones, which is off Cuba’s north coast.
It wasn’t immediately known what the boat and its occupants were doing in Cuban waters. In the statement, the ministry said Cuba’s government was “safeguarding its sovereignty and ensuring stability in the region.”
U.S. gathering own info on victims
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was made aware of the incident, noting the U.S. is gathering its own information to see if the victims were American citizens or permanent residents.
“We have various different elements of the U.S. government that are trying to identify elements of the story that may not be provided to us now,” Rubio told reporters at the airport in Basseterre, St. Kitts, where he was attending a regional summit with Caribbean leaders.
Two of the boat’s passengers, Amijail Sanchez Gonzalez and Leordan Enrique Cruz Gomez, are wanted by Cuban authorities because of their involvement in the “promotion, planning, organization, financing, support or commission of actions carried out in the national territory or in other countries, in connection with acts of terrorism,” said the country’s government.
A person identified as Duniel Hernandez Santos was also arrested. The Cuban government said Hernandez was “sent from the United States to guarantee the reception of the armed infiltration, who at this time has confessed to his actions.”
The government said it got details about the passengers from suspects detained after the shootout.
Seven of the 10 passengers were identified and also include Conrado Galindo Sariol, Jose Manuel Rodriguez Castello, Cristian Ernesto Acosta Guevara and Roberto Azcorra Consuegra.
Michel Ortega Casanova was one of the four killed in the shootout, while three others have not been identified, the Cuban government said, noting the investigation continues.
‘Highly unusual’ shootout: Rubio
Rubio refused to speculate on what happened, stating it could be a “wide range of things.” He said the U.S. will not only rely on the info that Cuban authorities have provided so far.
“Suffice it to say, it is highly unusual to see shootouts in open sea like that. It’s not something that happens every day. It’s something, frankly, that hasn’t happened with Cuba in a very long time,” said Rubio.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Coast Guard are investigating the incident, Rubio said.
Rubio stressed it wasn’t a U.S. government operation and that he wasn’t going to speculate about “whose boat it was, what they were doing, why they were there, what actually happened.”
The U.S. Secretary of State said he found out about the shooting before the Cuban government posted on social media, stating the U.S. has “constant contact” with the country “at the Coast Guard level.”
What one of the boat occupants said
In a June 2025 conducted by American-based news site Marti Noticias , Conrado Galindo Sariol (one of the identified passengers), said he wanted to support the struggles that Cubans face, most notably in the eastern part of the island, “to achieve the freedom that is needed.”
Galindo said protests on the island nation at the time were “not a spark that’s going to be extinguished.”
“The regime’s leaders are crisscrossing Cuba, trying to mitigate what’s coming very soon because … they know they’re out of power, that they can’t do anything about it, and they’re looking for ways to prevent the protests from growing in other parts of the country,” Galindo said in the 2025 interview.
— With files from The Associated Press