CUBA
Cuba disputes restitution for families in U.S.
HAVANA - (AP) -- Cuba accused the U.S. government Wednesday of robbing
the Caribbean country by awarding about $170 million in frozen Cuban
assets to families that sued the Cuban government in recent years.
A Foreign Ministry statement said that Cuba did not recognize the
jurisdiction of U.S. courts and that the U.S. government had no right to
grant any of the Cuban assets ``to terrorist groups or families of U.S.
citizens involved in aggressions against our country.''
In November, a federal judge in New York ordered JP Morgan Chase Bank to
turn over $91 million in Cuban assets to two families awarded damages
against the Cuban government because it killed their relatives more than
40 years ago.
The judge ordered the release of $67 million to the family of Howard
Anderson, who was shot by a Cuban firing squad after the 1961 Bay of
Pigs invasion, and $23.9 million to Janet Ray Weininger of Palmetto Bay,
for the execution of her father, CIA pilot Thomas ''Pete'' Ray, after
his aircraft was shot down during the failed invasion.
The newspaper statement denied the versions of the plaintiffs, saying
that Anderson was justly tried for ''his subversive activities . . .
against the Cuban people,'' and that Ray was an ''aggressor'' who was
``taken down during the invasion.''
The plaintiffs used a 1996 U.S. law that allows victims of designated
terrorist states to sue for damages. Both families had won cases in
Miami-Dade Circuit Court in 2003 and 2004 against the Cuban government,
which did not fight either family at trial.
Other families have also been awarded payments from the frozen assets.
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