Florida woman says money won't erase Castro's cruelty

Florida woman says money won't erase Castro's cruelty

By Tom Brown
Miami
Reuters
USA
Infosearch:
José Cadenas
Analyst
Bureau Chief
USA
Research Dept.
La Nueva Cuba
November 23, 2006

Janet Ray Weininger finally won a battle against Cuban leader Fidel
Castro last week when a court ordered she can collect $23.9 million in
frozen Cuban funds in compensation for her executed father.

But Weininger said the long-fought victory in a wrongful death lawsuit
against the Cuban government won't make her forget what she sees as
Castro's cruelty.

For years she had written the Cuban president, seeking information on
the fate of her father, a CIA contractor whose plane was shot down by
Cuban anti-aircraft guns during the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of
Cuba in 1961.

The attempted invasion by Miami-based Cuban exiles failed miserably and
Castro went on to defy repeated U.S. attempts to overthrow him.

"He answered me by sending me a bloodied back-and-white photo of him,"
Weininger told Reuters on Thursday.

The photo sent in 1978 showed the lifeless body of Thomas "Pete" Ray in
a coffin. In a note, Castro wrote, "I have your father's body, I've kept
him in a morgue."

"This was Fidel Castro's trophy," Weininger, 52, adding that Castro's
note to her was initially given to author Peter Wyden while he was in
Cuba doing research for his book "Bay of Pigs, The Untold Story" in the
late 1970s.

"That was devastating for me, to see my father that way. One of the
hardest things I did was having to look at him ... the way he looked in
that coffin it will haunt me till the day I die."

Weininger and the family of another American, Howard Anderson, were
cleared by a U.S. District court judge in New York on Friday to collect
nearly $91 million after they won two separate lawsuits, in 2003 and
2004, against Cuba for killings that took place soon after the Bay of
Pigs assault.

The earlier judgments in Florida courts, to collect from Cuban accounts
held at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., were blocked by office products giant
OfficeMax Inc. on grounds that it has the largest single claim against
the Cuban government for property expropriated after the communist-ruled
island's 1959 revolution.

OfficeMax declined to comment on last Friday's ruling by U.S. District
Court Judge Victor Marrero in New York and there has been no reaction
from Cuban authorities. A source close to OfficeMax said it had no
immediate intention to appeal, however, finally clearing the way for
Weininger to get her compensation. Because the money is held by a U.S.
bank, payment should be straightforward now the court has ruled.

Weininger said Castro eventually allowed her father's body to be
returned home to the United States. But that's when an autopsy revealed
more upsetting news about his death.

None of the injuries he suffered when his plane was shot down were
life-threatening, she said. He was executed, she added, with a gunshot
fired at point-blank range to the head.

"I wanted to honor him by seeking justice for him. And I'm glad that no
one escaped justice," Weininger said

http://www.lanuevacuba.com/nuevacuba/notic-06-11-2320.htm