Post date: Jan 04, 2011 8:59:0 PM
Judges sentences U.S. man to 15 years for hijacking a plane from New York and diverting it to Cuba in 1968.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (JANUARY 4, 2011) REUTERS - The last suspect in a 1968 hijacking of a Pan American airliner to Cuba was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Tuesday (January 4) after apologizing in a U.S. court for his "desperate actions."
Luis Armando Pena-Soltren, 69, a U.S. citizen from Puerto Rico, turned himself in to authorities in October 2009 after spending more than four decades in Cuba as a fugitive."I thought it was a very harsh sentence that did not take into account his lifetime, and focused instead on one mistake that he made forty-two years ago," explained Pena-Soltren's lawyer James Neuman outside the Manhattan federal court.
Pena-Soltren's motive, he said, was to see his sick father in Cuba, which has been under a U.S. embargo since just after the 1959 revolution on the Caribbean island. Pena-Soltren had also tried multiple times before 2009 to turn himself into U.S. authorities for his crime while living in Cuba.
Pena-Soltren admitted to the hijacking last March, pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit air piracy, interference with a flight crew and kidnapping.
None of the 83 passengers and crew was harmed.
Pena-Soltren's two cohorts, Jose Rafael Rios Cruz and Miguel Castro, were tried in the 1970s and then released after serving their prison sentences. Neuman noted Cruz and Castro, both Puerto Rican political activists unlike Pena-Sotren had criminal records, served only seven and four years in prison, respectively, before earning parole.
In an emotional plea before the sentencing, Pena-Soltren apologized "to all those people who felt threatened during my desperate actions."
On Nov. 11, 1968, the three men boarded Pan Am flight 281 to Puerto Rico from New York, U.S. prosecutors said.
About 90 minutes into the journey, Pena-Soltren held a knife to a flight attendant's throat and a gun to her back. He marched her to the cockpit, where the men ordered the pilots to change course. The gun according to Pena-Soltren had been loaded with the incorrect ammunition and could not be fired, but the flight crew and passengers were unaware of that.
In the 1960s and early 1970s, dozens of planes were hijacked from the United States to Cuba as Cold War tensions with the island's leader Fidel Castro intensified.
Some people hijacked the planes to make political statements, while others sought asylum in Cuba or ransom payments from the U.S. government.
"There was about, I think, 18 or more hijackings to Cuba in 1968, and while it was a dangerous crime obviously, it was not considered in the same manner that we do today in 9/11 as an apocalyptic crime," added Neuman who thought the judge did not view the event in its proper context.
Neuman will appeal Pena-Soltren's sentence.
"He was obviously very upset. He had an exchange with his family which they were very emotional," said Neuman. "I spoke to him afterwards and I told him that I thought the sentence was unfair and that we will appeal and that this is not over."