Cuba puts Miami exiles, media personalities on terrorist list

Cuban officials added 61 people and 19 groups to the country’s national list of wanted “terrorists,” which now includes a range of characters from Cold War-era hitmen to Instagram influencers.

In the country’s official gazette Thursday, officials listed a series of acts considered terrorist by the Cuban state, and under each act listed the individuals allegedly involved in those actions.

The list includes names like Guillermo Novo Sampoll, a Cuban nationalist who in the late 1970s was convicted and acquitted on retrial in relation to a Washington, D.C., car bombing that killed a Chilean diplomat. 

Novo landed on the Cuban terrorist list for alleged terrorist acts against Havana hotels and tourist venues in the 1990s.

The list also includes Alexander Alazo Baró, a Cuban immigrant to the United States who in 2020 fired 32 shots at the Cuban Embassy in Washington, and a number of individuals under investigation by Cuban authorities for alleged assassination attempts against late leader Fidel Castro.

But the list also includes Ninoska Pérez Castellón, a well-known Miami radio host and critic of the communist regime, for alleged participation in terrorist attacks in the 1990s.

Influencer Alexander Otaola Casal was included as a subject of an investigation “for inciting the realization of actions that affect social order in Cuba, through violent acts against public officials and the normal functioning of socioeconomic entities; and promoting armed aggression against Cuba.”

Otaola replied on Instagram Thursday, calling the accusation that he promotes violence “a new manipulation by the Cuban dictatorship.”

“This is one more time a slander and a hoax that communists use to keep the Cuban people entertained and deceived,” said Otaola, who is running for mayor of Miami-Dade County.

The wide brush used by Cuban officials highlights their frustration with a lack of progress in talks with the Biden administration over the country’s inclusion in the U.S. list of sponsors of terrorism.

Cuban officials have over the past two years engaged in a charm offensive in Washington, pushing to reverse the designation, issued by Trump administration officials in that administration’s dying days.

Cuba has argued the U.S. list is arbitrary and inconsistent with international law.

The island’s own list is preambled with a U.N. resolution that exhorts member states to share information on terrorist actions and alleged terrorists — a resolution passed on Sept. 28, 2001 in response to the 9/11 attacks.