Spain expels Cubans for kidnap bid

Press, 16 December 1985, Page 6

Spain expels Cubans for kidnap bid

NZPA-AP Madrid Four members of the Cuban Embassy staff left for Havana yesterday, after Spain arrested and expelled them for trying to kidnap a high-level Cuban defector. The Spanish Foreign Minister, Mr Francisco Fernandez Ordonez, summoned the Cuban ambassador, Mr Oscar Garcia Fernandez, over the matter. The minis-

try said that he had promised to investigate the matter. The four Cubans, includathe Vice-Consul, Mr AnAlberto Leon Cervantes, left Spain aboard a Cuban airliner. Twelve hours earlier a Madrid court had approved a Government request to expel them for actions incompatible with their diplo-

matic status. The police said that they had arrested the Cubans on Friday when they tried to force Manuel Antonio Sanchez Perez into a car at gun-point on a downtown Madrid street. Mr Sanchez Perez, formerly a Vice-Minister for State Planning in Fidel Castro’s Government, arrived in Madrid on Novem-

bet 18 and asked for political asylum the next day. He received provisional asylum on December 9. Three men tried to force him into the car, which was driven by a fourth man. The Cubans told passers-by that they were policemen, but the crowd aid not believe them and about 30 people surrounded the vehicle.

A taxi-driver also blocked : the car’s path with his cab, i and two security guards from a nearby bank got Mr Sanchez Perez out of the '■ car and into a building. The s crowd detained the Cubans * until the police arrived, t t The Foreign Minister > summoned Mr Garcia Fer- > nandez, the ambassador, to his office after receiving

news of the arrests, but the ambassador was detained in Barcelona by an air traffic controllers’ strike. During their meeting Mr Fernandez Ordonez told the ambassador that the actions of the four were inconceivable in a state where law ruled, and were in every aspect incompatible with their diplomatic positions.