Six Cubans Sentenced in Hijacking

MIAMI —  Six Cubans were sentenced Wednesday to at least 20 years in prison for hijacking an airliner from Cuba to Florida.

The six men were accused of using five knives and a cockpit ax to commandeer the Cuban airliner during a domestic flight in March 2003. The DC-3 with 37 people aboard landed in Key West with a U.S. fighter escort.

U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King sentenced brothers Alexis Norniella Morales, a 32-year-old veterinarian, and Miakel Guerra Morales, a 26-year-old circus performer, to 24 1/2 years in federal prison.

Four other hijackers -- Eduardo Javier Mejia Morales, 27, a student; Yainer Olivares Samon, 22, a teacher; Neudis Infantes Hernandez, 32, a veterinarian; and Alvenis Arias-Izquierdo, 25, a musician -- received 20 years in prison, the mandatory minimum term for air piracy under federal sentencing guidelines.

The judge also ruled that the Cubans could be deported when they get out of prison.

King said he punished the brothers more severely because they gave “blatantly perjured” testimony during their trial five months ago in Key West. Both told the jury that members of the flight crew, especially the co-pilot, helped them carry out the hijacking.

The defense team, which included several lawyers who were born in Cuba and came to South Florida as small children, characterized the hijacking as a “freedom flight.” They vowed to appeal the politically charged case, which was closely watched in Miami, Washington and Havana.

King observed that the hijackers achieved their goal of escaping the Cuban government and landing on American soil. But their plan fell short because they had expected to be “forgiven, excused and become citizens in due course.”

Defense attorneys Mario Cano and Israel Encinosa said their clients’ expectations were fed by what they had heard about others who escaped Cuba before them.

“For the last 40 years, people have come to the United States and have not been prosecuted,” Cano said.