Chronicle on Cuba - July 2008

Terrorism

July 22: Samir Qantar, the Lebanese terrorist serving a life sentence in Israel for murdering a Jewish family—including a four-year-old girl whose skull he smashed with a rifle—has made his first private visit since being freed in a prisoner swap between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah: to the Cuban Embassy in Beirut. “I am at the disposition of the Cuban government for any work to liberate the five Cuban prisoners being held by the United States,” Qantar proudly told María Isabel Velásquez, Havana’s top diplomat in Beirut, at an emotional ceremony that was also attended by Qantar’s brother Bassam and a group of Lebanese journalists (News on Cuba, Cubaminrex- Embacuba Líbano, 22/7/08).

July 30: The Embassy of Cuba in Lebanon congratulated Samir Qantar, a Lebanese man recently released by Israel after serving 29 years in jail for the murder of three people, including a four-year-old girl. "We appreciate his struggle for the release of our five compatriots," said acting business attachée, Maria Isabel de Velásquez, who claimed that the five Cuban prisoners in the United States also campaigned for Qantar’s release. "We believe Samir Qantar to be a fighter in the Arab cause to put an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and Lebanon," added the diplomat (EFE, 30/7/08).