In December 1971, the freighters Leyla Express and Johnny Express were seized by Cuban gunboats. The Leyla Express was stopped in international waters off the Cuban coast on December 5; the Johnny Express was intercepted by gunboats near the island of Little Inagua in the Bahamas ten days later. Some of the crew of the Johnny Express, including the captain, were injured when the gunboats fired on their vessel. The freighters both carried Panamanian flags of convenience, but belonged to the Bahama Lines corporation, based in Miami. The company was run by four brothers, Cuban exiles who had previously been involved in activities directed against the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. Cuba stated that both vessels were being used by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to transport weapons, explosives, and personnel to Cuba, and described the vessels as being engaged in piracy. Cuba had suspected the involvement of one of Bahama Lines's ships in shelling the Cuban village of Samá, on the northern coast of Oriente Province, a few months previously; several civilians had died in the attack. The US government of Richard Nixon and the Bahama Lines denied the accusations.
Cuba released the crew of both ships to Panamanian custody, but announced that José Villa, the captain of the Johnny Express, had confessed to being an agent of the CIA, and would face trial. The US asked the Panamanian government of Omar Torrijos to negotiate his release. Rómulo Escobar Bethancourt and Manuel Noriega traveled to Cuba, where they negotiated Villa's release into Panamanian custody, in return for which criminal charges were brought against Villa in Panama, though he was released without being convicted. The success of the negotiations undertaken by Noriega were later used by him to bargain with the US government. As a consequence of the incident, the US ordered all its naval and air forces in the region to go to the aid of any ships coming under attack from Cuban vessels. A Panamanian mission which investigated the incident concluded, based on the ships' logs, that the vessels had in fact brought insurgent forces to Cuban territory, and that the Cuban government's accusations on that count were accurate.
Background
The Johnny Express and the Leyla Express were two Miami-based freighters flying Panamanian flags of convenience. They were owned by the Bahama Lines corporation, based in Miami, which also ran four other freighters. The corporation was owned by four brothers from the Babún family: all four were Cuban exiles. The Miami Herald reported that all four had been involved in activities directed against the government of Fidel Castro, while the New York Times wrote that the brothers were opposed to the Cuban government, and had aided actions against it. Among Cuban exiles in Miami, Santiago Babún, one of the brothers, was believed to have been an agent of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) while in Cuba. According to reporter John Dinges both freighters were being used by Cuban exiles to launch machine-gun attacks on Cuban government targets. In discussing the relationship between former Director of Central Intelligence and US President George H. W. Bush and Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega in a 1997 biography of Bush, historian Herbert Parmet stated that the two freighters had been used to launch speed-boat attacks against Cuba.
The Cuban government believed that a boat owned by one of the brothers was responsible for shelling the Cuban village of Samá, on the northern coast of Oriente Province, in October 1971; several people were reported to have been killed in the attack. Cuban radio stations had reported that the attackers had fled on a "mother ship". On October 15 the Miami News reported that a spokesperson for José Elias de la Torriente, a Cuban exile, had claimed responsibility for the attack at Sama. The spokesperson said that the attack had been against a military base, and that it was "just the beginning" of their plans to fight the Cuban government. According to the New York Times, information available to it suggested that vessels owned by the Babún brothers did not participate in the raid on Samá. Several months before December 1971, the Bahama Lines were reported to have complained to the US government that their ships were being followed by Cuban vessels. The company stated that the US Coast Guard had been notified of every incident, but that the Coast Guard had not taken any action.