MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) – Cuba has strongly protested the actions of Washington that granted asylum to a Cuban who hijacked an Antonov An-2 aircraft to fly to the United States, Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday.
In October 2022, Cuban agricultural pilot Ruben Martinez Machado, flying the An-2 aircraft of Cuban air company Empresa Nacional de Servicios Aereos SA (ENSA), did not return to El Cedro airfield after completing his scheduled flight. On the same day, US media reported that the pilot had landed in the US state of Florida.
“On February 27, 2023, [Cuban] Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio summoned US Chargé d’Affaires Benjamin Ziff to the ministry of foreign affairs to formally convey Cuba’s strong protest against the granting of political asylum to Cuban citizen Ruben Martinez Machado, who hijacked a Cuban civil aircraft on October 21, 2022,” the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry said that it has requested the extradition of “the perpetrator of this act of air piracy” and the return of the aircraft in four notes verbales, adding that the acts of air piracy are covered by various international conventions ratified by Cuba and the US, and the impunity for this type of crime “sets a negative and dangerous precedent.”
The ministry noted that Washington encourages and tolerates air piracy to destabilize the situation in the island nation despite the negative consequences of such incidents, and the US government and judicial system become “accomplices” of air piracy and aircraft hijacking.

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