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Woman Files Suit Over Father Lost In Bay Of Pigs
By CATHERINE WILSON The Associated Press
Published: Oct 3, 2003

MIAMI - The daughter of a CIA pilot shot down and executed during the Bay of
Pigs invasion filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Cuban government under an
antiterrorism law.
Alabama National Guard pilot Thomas ``Pete'' Ray became a pawn in the Cold War
when Cuba put his body in cold storage and kept it there for 18 years while the
United States officially denied he was authorized to be in Cuba.

Ray's body was returned in 1979, but it took until 1998 before the CIA openly
acknowledged his role in the failed attempt to oust President Fidel Castro in
1961.

``We didn't know if he was dead or alive. It was like our whole family was held
hostage to this,'' Ray's daughter Janet Weininger said at a news conference
announcing the lawsuit at a Bay of Pigs memorial in Miami's Little Havana
neighborhood.

A call for comment to the Cuban Interests Section in Washington was not
immediately returned.

Ray trained six dozen pilots for the invasion flights from Nicaragua to Cuba.
His B-26 was shot down less than 48 hours after the first landing.

An autopsy performed at the University of Alabama at Birmingham concluded Ray
died of a contact gunshot wound to the right temple.

His frozen body was displayed at a Cuban morgue in a glass case ``as an
exhibit, as a reward,'' Weininger said. ``They would at times spit in his
face.''


The wrongful death lawsuit filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court seeks unspecified
compensatory and punitive damages under federal laws against summary executions
by state sponsors of terrorism.

The suit names the Cuban government, Cuban army, Castro and his brother Raul
Castro as defendants.

In recent lawsuits against Cuba, the Cuban government has not defended itself
and lost by default. Damage awards can be collected by the seizure of Cuban
assets in the United States, such as a plane flown by defectors to Key West
last year.

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