Cuban authorities said Thursday that a fifth crew member of a U.S.-flagged speedboat involved in a shootout with the coast guard last week has died of his wounds.
Prosecutors have filed terrorism charges against the surviving crew members of the boat, suspected of trying to bring weapons to Cuba in hopes of destabilizing the communist government in Havana.
One of the six survivors, identified as Roberto Alvarez Avila, “died on March 4 from wounds he received,” the interior ministry said in a statement.
The shootout occurred on February 25 when a coast guard boat approached the vessel to demand identification, and the crew responded by opening fire.
The Cuban coast guard shot and killed four other people aboard the boat, which came within one nautical mile of the Caribbean island’s shores.
Cuban officials say the speedboat, registered in the United States, was carrying firearms of various calibers, including 14 rifles, 11 pistols and nearly 13,000 rounds of ammunition.
The interior ministry added the investigation into the incident was advancing with the cooperation of U.S. authorities, “including evidence sharing and other joint actions.”
At least two of those aboard the speedboat were U.S. citizens, one of whom was killed.
According to the official and an incident report from the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office in Florida, the boat’s owner alleged that the vessel had been stolen by an employee.
President Donald Trump’s administration has made no secret of its desire for regime change in Cuba, imposing an energy blockade after the ouster of leftist autocrat Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, which was the communist island’s top supplier of oil.
The brother of one of the men who was killed in the speedboat incident said his sibling was fixated on overthrowing Cuba’s government.
Misael Ortega Casanova, brother of Michael Ortega Casanova, told the AP that his brother had fallen into an “obsessive and diabolical” quest to free Cuba from its communist government. Cubans in the United States and Cuban Americans have long protested the current Cuban government, and accused the island’s leadership of human rights violations.
“They became so obsessed that they didn’t think about the consequences nor their own lives,” Casanova said of his brother and the other men who were aboard the boat.
contributed to this report.
