from a friend of DU in South Florida: :hi:
(snip)
Posted on Sun, Sep. 07, 2003
Exiles to be tried on lesser charges
Men, including three Miamians, accused of trying to kill Castro
BY FRANCES ROBLES
[email protected]PANAMA CITY - Four Cuban exiles accused of plotting to blow up President Fidel Castro three years ago must stand trial in November on lesser charges, a judge has ruled despite defense arguments that there was no convincing evidence against them.
The decision, announced near midnight Friday, ended a contentious three-day pre-trial hearing to determine the fates of former fugitive Luis Posada Carriles and Miamians Gaspar Jiménez, Guillermo Novo and Pedro Remón.
The four long-time anti-Castro activists were arrested here in November 2000, at the start of the 10th Ibero American Summit, when Castro startled the crowd at the conference by announcing that Cuba's most wanted man was in Panama City plotting to kill him. Panamanian police descended on Posada's hotel, capturing the four as the 75-year-old Posada took an afternoon nap.
POSADA'S BAG
The investigation later netted José Manuel Hurtado, a local man the men had hired to drive them around. Hurtado told investigators that he found a bag ''Posada always carried'' in the Mitsubishi he had rented. When he went to return it, Posada's hotel was surrounded by police cars. (snip/...)
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/6711262.htm~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The story was out quite a while ago that someone had paid off Panamanian officials when it was suddenly announced they had discovered the detonating devices were somehow missing from the material they had originally taken at the time of the arrest. Without the detonating devices, some claim there is no proof of an attempted assassination, so a lesser charge must be pressed.
The ORIGINAL charge was murder at the time they apparently HAD all the necessary evidence. This kind of thing is NOT new where exile assassins are involved.
For one thing, lots of articles claim Posada escaped from a Venezuelan prison, dressed as a priest:
(snip) Posada Carriles escaped from jail in Venezuela in 1985, reportedly disguised as a priest.
He resurfaced in El Salvador working on a clandestine operation to airlift tons of arms and ammunition to Nicaraguan rebels fighting the left-wing Sandinista government. It was run by Lt. Col Oliver North from the Old Executive Building
and led to the Reagan administration's worst political scandal over the secret sale of arms to Iran to illegally fund the Contras. (snip/...)
http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~delacova/bay-of-pigs/plotters.htmHere's a snippet which relates to CANF paying Venezuelan authorities to get Posada "sprung:"
(snip) He protested that he did not order the attack and blamed it on a Cuban colleague but was held for nine years until a spectacular escape in 1985 in which prison officials admitted being bribed. Posada told the Times that Mas Canosa and other leaders of the Cuban American National Foundation paid to get him out of Venezuela. (snip)
http://www.robertscheer.com/1_natcolumn/98_columns/071498.htmA Startling Tale of U.S. Complicity
By Robert Scheer
Published July 14, 1998 in the Los Angeles Times