Army officer killed in Cuba highjack bid

New Delhi: Two Cuban army recruits tried to hijack a passenger plane to escape to the United States.

The Cuban government said the recruits were arrested after they killed a hostage on board the plane.

The soldiers hijacked a bus with passengers, took it to Havana airport and seized an empty passenger plane.

The hijackers reportedly killed an unarmed army lieutenant colonel before being overpowered by security forces.

An Interior Ministry statement suggested that Acuna Velazquez, who was unarmed, happened to be on the bus at the time it was commandeered and died ''heroically'' trying to thwart the hijacking. Other bus passengers were unharmed.

The government blamed anti-Cuba US policy for the incident.

''The responsibility for these new crimes lies with the highest-ranking authorities of the United States, adding to the long list of terrorist acts that Cuba has been the victim of for nearly half a century,'' it said.

Havana says US immigration policies giving most Cubans almost guaranteed residency encourages them to risk their lives to get to the United States, and says that American officials have long tolerated - even encouraged - violence against the communist-run country.

The incident comes amid an ongoing political campaign by Cuba's government accusing US authorities of protecting its archenemy Luis Posada Carriles, a 79-year-old Cuban militant who it accuses of an airliner bombing three decades ago and a string of Havana hotel bombings in the late 1990s.

Thursday's was the first Cuban hijacking attempt reported since the spring of 2003, when an architect seized an airliner carrying passengers on a domestic flight from the Isle of Youth and diverted it to the United States by brandishing fake grenades. The hijacker was later sentenced to 20 years in prison in the United States.

The previous month, six hijackers forced a Cuban passenger plane to fly to the US at knifepoint. US Air Force fighter jets forced the aircraft to land in Key West.

Thursday's suspects were among three army soldiers on mandatory military service who fled their base with assault rifles Sunday after killing a fellow soldier and wounding another. The statement said the third escaped soldier was captured before the attempted hijacking but it did not say when.

(With AP inputs)