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The U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, remembered this Friday the anniversary of the terrorist attack carried out on January 24, 1975, at the Fraunces Tavern in New York, where four people died and around fifty were injured. He also denounced that the Cuban regime continues to protect the intellectual author of the attack, the Puerto Rican extremist William “Guillermo” Morales.
"The illegitimate Cuban regime continues to harbor William Morales, the architect of this atrocious crime," Rubio wrote on X (formerly Twitter). "We honor the memory of the deceased and acknowledge the enduring pain of the victims. The United States will not relent in its pursuit of justice," added the head of U.S. diplomacy.
Morales was the main manufacturer of explosives for the separatist group Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), responsible for more than 130 attacks on U.S. soil during the 1970s and 1980s.
Convicted of terrorism and prison escape, he fled to Mexico in 1979 and, after being arrested, managed to reach Cuba, where he has lived under official protection for over four decades. Washington has repeatedly demanded his extradition, without receiving a response from Havana.
The case of Morales is just one among more than 70 American fugitives currently residing in Cuba, many of whom are accused of murder, kidnapping, drug trafficking, or terrorism.
Among them was Joanne Chesimard, also known as Assata Shakur, a former member of the Black Panthers, who killed police officer Werner Foerster in New Jersey in 1973 and died in Havana in 2025 without having faced justice.
In 2018, Rubio —then a senator— signed, along with the Democrat Bob Menéndez, a bipartisan resolution calling for the “immediate extradition” of these fugitives. “The Castro regime's refusal to hand over murderers of police officers and terrorists demonstrates its hostility towards the United States,” Rubio stated at the time.
That impunity, officials from Washington report, effectively places Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, a designation that was reinstated by the administration of Donald Trump and which Rubio advocates to maintain as long as the regime "continues to protect criminals and accomplices of terror."
The new complaint from Rubio comes amid a growing pressure campaign by the United States against the regime of Miguel Díaz-Canel and Raúl Castro.
In recent statements, the Secretary of State warned that the rulers of the Island will have to "choose between change or collapse," following the end of Venezuelan oil subsidies and the deterioration of the Cuban economy.
"Havana no longer has anyone to depend on. It lost Maduro's oil, lost Russian credits, and is left without allies willing to finance its repression. The only thing it retains is the fear of its people," Rubio stated during a conference alongside President Trump, who affirmed that there will be no relief or negotiation with Cuba as long as it remains a "refuge for terrorists and enemies of freedom."
The message is clear: the United States maintains a policy of maximum pressure on the communist regime, which it accuses of protecting terrorists, oppressing its people, and sustaining an anachronistic dictatorship. For Rubio, the impunity of Morales and other fugitives symbolizes the moral and political decay of Havana.
"Cuba continues to harbor and provide refuge to American fugitives and terrorists. We demand that the American fugitives sought under the protection of the Cuban regime be brought to justice," Rubio said a year ago, promising that the United States will not rest until every criminal protected by Castroism faces justice.
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