Cuba speedboat shooting kills 4

HAVANA (AP) — The Cuban government said Wednesday night that the 10 passengers on a boat that opened fire on its soldiers were armed Cubans living in the United States who were trying to infiltrate the island and spark terrorism.

The announcement came hours after Cuba said its soldiers killed four people and wounded six others aboard a Florida-registered speedboat that entered Cuban waters and opened fire on the soldiers first, wounding a Cuban officer.

The Cuban government said the majority of the 10 people on the boat “have a known history of criminal and violent activity.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier told reporters that he had been briefed on the incident and that the United States was now gathering its own information to determine whether the victims were U.S. citizens or permanent residents.

“We have different elements of the U.S. government trying to identify pieces of history that maybe aren’t being provided to us now,” Rubio said at Basseterre airport in St. Kitts, where he was participating in a regional summit with Caribbean leaders.

The Cuban government identified two of the boat’s passengers, Amijail Sánchez González and Leordan Enrique Cruz Gómez, wanted by Cuban authorities “due to their involvement in the promotion, planning, organization, financing, support or execution of actions carried out in the national territory or in other countries, in relation to acts of terrorism.”

The government said it also arrested Duniel Hernández Santos, adding that he was “sent from the United States to guarantee the reception of the armed infiltration, who at that time confessed to his actions.”

The Associated Press was not immediately able to independently verify this information.

The Cuban government said it had obtained details of the passengers on the boat from the suspects arrested following the shooting.

Seven of the ten passengers were identified, including Conrado Galindo Sariol, José Manuel Rodríguez Castelló, Cristian Ernesto Acosta Guevara and Roberto Azcorra Consuegra. The Cuban government said one of the four killed was Michel Ortega Casanova. Three others have not yet been identified.

“The investigation process continues until the facts are fully clarified,” the ministry said in a statement.

Misael Ortega Casanova, brother of Michel Ortega Casanova, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he mourned his brother’s death but lamented that he had fallen into what he called an “obsessive and diabolical” quest for Cuba’s freedom.

“Only we Cubans who lived there understand,” Misael Ortega Casanova said, referring to the “great suffering” he and other Cubans on the island faced.

He noted that his brother, a truck driver and American citizen who lived for more than 20 years in the United States, leaves behind his wife, his mother, his two sisters, one of whom lives in Cuba, and a pregnant daughter.

“No one knew,” Misael said of his brother’s plans. “My mother is devastated.”

He added: “They became so obsessed that they didn’t think about the consequences or their own lives. »

Misael said he did not recognize any of the names released by the Cuban government.

He said that while he doesn’t believe in heroes – “because that’s ignorance” – he hopes his brother’s death could be a worthwhile sacrifice: “maybe it will justify Cuba being free one day.”

A “very unusual” shooting

WE That of President Donald Trump The top diplomat declined to speculate on what happened, saying it could be a “wide range of things” and that the United States will not rely solely on what Cuban authorities have provided so far.

“Suffice it to say, it’s very unusual to see shootings like this on the open sea. It’s not something that happens every day. It’s something, frankly, that hasn’t happened in Cuba in a very long time,” Rubio said.

He said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Coast Guard were investigating the incident and stressed that he wanted to verify the facts.

“The majority of publicly reported facts come from information provided by the Cubans. We will verify this independently as we gather more information, and we will be prepared to respond accordingly,” Rubio said. “We’re going to have our own information on this. We’re going to find out exactly what happened.”

He said it was not a U.S. government operation and that he was not going to “speculate on who owned that boat, what they were doing, why they were there, what really happened.”

One of the men identified by the Cuban government, Conrado Galindo Sariol, was interviewed in June 2025 by Martí Noticias, a U.S.-based news site that has long called for a change of government in Cuba.

Galindo, whom the host called a “legend” and a former political prisoner, reportedly said he wanted to support the struggles Cubans face, particularly in the eastern part of the island, “to get the freedom they need.”

He said the protests in Cuba at that time were “not a spark that’s going to go out.”

“The regime’s leaders are traveling across Cuba, trying to mitigate what is going to happen very soon because … they know they no longer have power, they can’t do anything about it, and they are looking for ways to prevent protests from escalating in other parts of the country,” Galindo was quoted as saying.

Fear of rising tensions

Rubio said he discovered the shooting before the Cuban government posted it on social media, noting that the United States had “constant contact” with the country “at the coast guard level.”

Earlier, Cuba’s Interior Ministry issued a statement providing few details about the shooting, but saying the boat was about 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) northeast of Cayo Falcones, off Cuba’s northern coast.

The government provided the boat’s registration number, but The Associated Press was unable to verify the boat’s details because boat registrations are not public in the state of Florida.

It was not immediately clear what the boat and its occupants were doing in Cuban waters. In the statement, the ministry said the Cuban government “preserves its sovereignty and guarantees stability in the region.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida said it would seek answers “through all available legal and diplomatic channels,” adding that “the facts remain unclear and conflicting.”

US Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday afternoon that Rubio had informed him of the incident. He added that the White House was monitoring the situation.

“I hope it’s not as bad as we fear,” Vance said.

The filming threatens to increase tensions between the United States and Cuba. After the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump and top administration officials took an increasingly aggressive stance toward Cuba, which had been criticized. largely kept afloat economically by Venezuelan oil.

The energy crisis that Cuba has been grappling with in recent years reached new extremes last month when Trump signed an executive order that would impose tariffs on any country selling or supplying oil to Cuba. The move put pressure on Mexico, on which Cuba became largely dependent for its oil after Trump cut off its oil shipments from Venezuela.

Meanwhile, James Uthmeier, Florida’s attorney general, said he had ordered prosecutors to work with federal, state and law enforcement partners to open an investigation.

“The Cuban government cannot be trusted, and we will do everything in our power to hold these communists accountable,” he wrote on X.

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Lee reported from Basseterre, St. Kitts and Coto de San José, Costa Rica. Associated Press journalists Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, and Michael Biesecker, Aamer Madhani and Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed to this report.