Contact: Sophia Powell-Cosio Ep. (305) 579-9988
Contact: Sylvia Pascual (305) 477-1868
On July 5, 1996 Judge William Pope, after listening to eight days of arduous testimony overturned the Federal Aviation Administration's Order of Revocation of the pilot's license of José J. Basulto, the President of Brothers to the Rescue and instead issued a much reduced sentence in the form of a 150 day suspension.
On appeal from the FAA, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board overturned Judge Pope´s decision without citing a single case to support its decision, an in complete disregard of the decision of Judge Pope. This new, arbitrary and purely political action appears design to have BTTR share, by implication, the blame for the shootdown and murder of our own brothers. It appears that instead of punishing the true criminal in this case, namely the Castro government, the U.S. Government has chosen to punish the victims themselves, Brothers to the Rescue.
Brothers to the Rescue, although financially strained by legal costs, will respond by appealing this rediculously arbitrary decision by the National Transportation Safety Board to the Federal Courts. It is not so much the issue of Mr. Basulto´s license that concerns BTTR, after all BTTR has an ever expanding list of voluntary pilots wishing to fly, but the fact that the U.S. Government is intent on appeasing the Cuban Government by faulting BTTR.
Now, more than ever Brothers to the Rescue requests the moral
and financial support of all of its members, and once again asks
Congress to investigate the U.S. Government´s failure to
warn BTTR in flight of the staulking and killing of its pilots.
Copyright © 1996 Brothers to the Rescue, Inc.