One-Man Court

Fidel Castro fumed. A court of his own rebel judges had acquitted 19 pilots, ten gunners and 16 mechanics of Dictator Fulgencio Batista's air force on trial for "war crimes." Taking judgment into his own hands, he decided that the pilots were guilty as charged of "genocide, murder and homicide" in the bombing and strafing of villages during his war on Batista, ordered the verdict reversed. It was.

The essentials of the prosecution case were that Batista's bombers killed at least eight and injured 16 in 600 attacks. As evidence it submitted flight reports of the attacks signed by the pilots themselves.

The defense replied that genocide is not defined in any penal code in force in Cuba. Moreover, said the defense, although the airmen by their own count dropped 6,080 bombs and fired 5,000,000 machine-gun bullets, they deliberately misdirected their fire, dropped their bombs outside the target area, sabotaged bombs so they would not explode, falsified their flight reports. As evidence of this, the defense pointed to the small toll.

Sitting in Santiago de Cuba, capital of Castro's Oriente province wartime stronghold, the three-man tribunal of Castro rebels made two main points. They acknowledged that many attacked villages were legitimate military targets, since "our forces were in most of them," added that "it has not been possible to identify which of the accused on trial here were those who produced the deaths."

Furious at the acquittal, Castro exploded that "it has been a grave error of the revolutionary tribunal to absolve those criminal pilots." He had Chief Defense Counsel Aristides Dacosta hauled in by rebel troops and flown to military headquarters in Havana for a talking-to. He sent his bearded Defense Minister, Augusto Martinez, to Santiago to organize a "review" court. The new verdict: 30 years at hard labor for the pilots, lesser terms for non-pilots. Two were acquitted.

The spectacle of Lawyer Castro's ignoring the principle of double jeopardy caused the Havana, Santiago and National Bar Associations to protest. A defense attorney for the airmen, Carlos Pena Justiz, said the reversal could stamp Castro as "a new Napoleon in the Caribbean." Muttered Castro: "Reactionary." As he spoke, firing squads across the island were busy building the week's execution total to 30, the overall accounting to 392.

Last week Castro also:

P: Caused a mild flap in Washington over his acceptance of an invitation of the American Society of Newspaper Editors to address their April 17 meeting there. As Cuba's Prime Minister, Castro should have sent his intention to visit the U.S. through diplomatic channels. Just the same, said the State Department, he "will assuredly be welcomed."

P: Sat down on the side porch of his villa outside Havana one afternoon to get acquainted with new U.S. Ambassador Philip W. Bonsai. "Friendly, cordial and knowledgeable about Cuba," said Castro. "A good ambassador."

P: Insisted that an "embezzler should lose what he owned as well as what he stole," authorized confiscation of all personal property of Batista and hundreds of officials connected with him--including all Congressmen, mayors, governors, Supreme Court justices, all armed-forces officers who supported Batista's 1952 coup.

P: Burst into a Havana radio and TV station, rambled on for three hours and 20 minutes about threats of counterrevolution. His enemies, he protested, "are buying arms in Miami," and the FBI is doing nothing to prevent it.

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