
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, September 19, 1993                   TAG: 9309190137
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder Newspapers
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

CUBA SENDS DRUG FUGITIVES BACK TO U.S.

Cuban officials and American drug agents completed the first joint U.S.-Cuban drug bust Saturday with a historic transfer of prisoners at Jose Marti International Airport in Havana.

The Cubans handed over two cocaine-trafficking suspects whose powerboat was stopped by a Cuban gunboat last month after it was chased into Cuban waters by a U.S. Army helicopter.

The unprecedented law enforcement cooperation between two nations that have spent three decades without diplomatic relations was brokered by the U.S. State Department and carried out by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

"Cuba appears to be making a statement that they are not going to be a haven for drug trafficking," said Thomas V. Cash, DEA special agent in charge in Miami. "I think they're trying to clean up their image. You might say that the welcome mat has been removed from in front of the door."

Officials from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana were on hand at Jose Marti when a DEA jet from Miami arrived at 2 p.m. Saturday to take custody of the prisoners, who allegedly dumped 720 pounds of cocaine before they were caught by the Cubans.

The prisoners, Jorge Roberto Lam Rojas, 33, and Jose Angel Clemente Alvarez, 31, were flown into Miami International Airport at 5:27 p.m. and then transported to DEA headquarters. Lam is described as a Cuban national living in Sweetwater, Fla. Clemente lives in Dade County.

by CNB