U.S. Trying To Figure Out What To Do With Cuban Defector Official Hijacks Airplane To Guantanamo, Seeks Asylum

A day after a Cuban interior ministry official hijacked a civilian Cuban plane to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, the Clinton administration wrestled Monday with the prickly dilemma of what to do with him.

The defector, Lt. Col. Jose Fernandez Pupo, remained at the base Monday, where various U.S. agencies - including intelligence officials - debriefed him, while the Immigration and Naturalization Service considered his plea for political asylum.

“He is in the brig there. He is being questioned by our military authorities and by Justice (Department) officials … about why he undertook this action and about what his plans and desires might be pertaining to the United States,” said State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns.

Burns said the Clinton administration “strongly condemns this act of air piracy.”

Brandishing two .22-caliber pistols, Fernandez Pupo forced a Cuban commuter biplane to deviate Sunday afternoon from its route from Santiago, Cuba, to the city of Guantanamo and land at the U.S. base nearby.

The plane, which carried 14 passengers and three crew members in addition to Fernandez Pupo, touched down at 11:30 a.m. PDT. Moments later, Fernandez Pupo emerged, placed his weapons on the ground and told U.S. military personnel that he was seeking political asylum in the United States.

One U.S. source said Fernandez Pupo had discharged his pistol at least once aboard the plane, but no one was hurt.

The pilot was allowed to take off from the naval base for the city of Guantanamo at 1:30 p.m. after the passengers and crew said they wanted to return to Cuba, officials said.

Despite one bullet hole, the plane was deemed flight-worthy.

Clinton administration officials privately acknowledged Monday that a flurry of political considerations was being weighed in determining whether to return Fernandez Pupo to Cuba, try him in U.S. courts or grant him asylum and set him free.

The hijacking took place only two weeks before the administration plans to seek condemnation of Cuba at the U.N. Security Council for its Feb. 24 downing of two U.S. Cessnas, which killed four airmen from the Miami group Brothers to the Rescue.

An investigation by the United Nations’ civil aviation branch backed up the U.S. claim that the planes had been shot down in international airspace, not in Cuban territory as Havana had asserted.