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Posted on Fri, Dec. 06, 2002 in
The Miami Herald.
Trial of exiles in anti-Castro plot halted in Panama after 4 ½
hours
Lawyer seeks to add charge
By Juan O. Tamayo. jtamayo@herald.com
PANAMA - The trial of the man that Cuba calls its ''most wanted terrorist''
and three Cuban Americans started and halted Thursday after a lawyer insisted
they be charged with trying to kill Fidel Castro in 2000.
Luis Posada Carriles, Gaspar Jiménez and Pedro Remón of Miami
and Guillermo Novo of New Jersey, who have been jailed for two years, groaned
when the judge suspended the long-awaited trial after only 4 ½ hours.
''Exiles to the firing squad,'' chanted elated members of leftist Panamanian
student, labor and indigenous groups represented at the trial as potential
victims of the alleged plot to bomb a university hall where Castro spoke during
a visit for an Ibero-American summit of heads of states.
''We're here to support these four patriots,'' said Ignacio Castro, a Miami
businessman and friend of the accused, who range in age from Posada's 74 to Remón's
57 and share long histories of violent anti-Castro activities.
Two diplomats from the Cuban Embassy, 20 of the defendants' relatives and
friends, and 30 leftist Panamanians shared, uneasily, the oak-beamed courtroom
in a one-time U.S. courthouse in the former Panama Canal Zone.
Prosecutors remained oddly silent as Judge Enrique Paniza and defense
attorneys argued with lawyers for the leftist groups who sought to resubmit a
charge, dropped this summer, of plotting to kill the Cuban president.
Paniza denied their motions and three secretaries began to take turns
reading the prosecution's 120-page summation of its evidence on the remaining
charges of possessing 33 pounds of explosives and conspiracy to commit a crime.
Most damaging was a deposition made last year by José Valladares, a
Cuba native who hosted the four exiles at his farm in northern Panama just days
before Castro arrived on Nov. 18, 2000.
''My opinion is that he should be killed, but not like that'' -- with a bomb
-- Valladares, who died last month, was quoted as saying. ``Kennedy was killed
with a rifle with a telescopic sight.''
Posada has admitted hiring Central American mercenaries to set off a dozen
bombs around Havana tourist spots in 1997 that killed one person and wounded 20
in the worst streak of terrorism to hit Cuba in 43 years.
Cuba also accuses him of the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner in which more
than 70 people were killed, as well as a dozen of the more than 600
assassination plots that Castro says have been launched against him.
Jiménez, Novo and Remón have also been linked to several
violent anti-Castro attacks since the 1960s.
Cuban-Panamanian César Matamoros and three Panamanians are also on
trial, but on lesser charges of covering up.
The four main defendants say they came to Panama to help a Cuban army
general they had been told would defect when he arrived here as part of Castro's
security ring.
They deny any assassination plot.
Prosecutors declared that the exiles' Panamanian chauffeur, José
Hurtado, asserted he found the explosives in a Florida Marlins gym bag that he
believes Jiménez left in the group's rented car.
Jiménez has denied owning the bag, and says that Cuban agents put it
there to frame the exiles.
But Paniza suspended the trial after receiving word that attorney Julio Berríos
had filed a writ in Superior Court challenging the judge's refusal to reopen the
issue of the attempted assassination charges.
Paniza noted that the Supreme Court had already twice upheld his decision to
drop that charge, but said he had no choice but to suspend the trial until the
Superior Court rules.
Defense lawyers accused Berríos of delaying tactics, explaining that
even if Berríos loses in the Superior Court he could still appeal to the
Supreme Court, a process that could delay the trial for months.
The defendants and their lawyers had been hoping for a quick trial of 4-5
days and then either a finding of innocence or a conviction with a light
sentence of time served.
Posada, asked during the lunch recess if he was ready to walk out a free
man, noted that Panama was still considering a Venezuelan request for his
extradition on the 1976 Cubana de Aviación bombing.
The three others could go home immediately, he said, ''but my case will take
a while longer.'' A lot longer, it now seems.
Elian Gonzalez celebrates ninth birthday
John Rice. Associated Press
HAVANA - Life has never been the same for Elian Gonzalez since an ill-fated
attempt to take him to the United States left his mother dead and made him the
focus of an international tug-of-war.
The boy turned 9 years old Friday before the eyes of the press and with
celebrations in all his hometown's schools.
Elian remains an icon on both sides of the Florida Strait - a symbol of
betrayal to many Cuban-Americans furious at his return to Cuba and the focus of
a major publicity campaign for the island's communist government.
Cuban officials say they have tried to create a relatively normal life for
the child who lived under the constant vigilance of television cameras during
his seven-month stay in the United States from November 1999 to June 2000.
But few 9-year-olds have a museum dedicated to the fight for their custody
or see their birthday celebrated in schools throughout their hometown. Cardenas
is about 85 miles east of Havana.
The Communist Party youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde dedicated a full page
Friday to Elian, publishing photos that showed him in a suit and tie alongside
his father Juan Miguel Gonzalez and sitting atop a horse and a motor scooter
with relatives.
Castro himself showed up for Elian's seventh birthday in 2000, less than six
months after U.S. officials returned him to Cuba.
Elian was rescued off Florida after his mother and most of the other
passengers clandestinely traveling from Cuba to the United States died when
their boat capsized.
The boy was temporarily placed with relatives in Miami who, backed by other
Cuban exiles, fought to keep the child in the United States.
In response, Castro organized nearly daily rallies to demand that Elian be
returned and reunited with his father.
U.S agents raided the Miami relatives home in April 2000 and seized the boy.
Elian was returned to Cuba on June 28, 2000, after a legal battle that went to
the U.S. Supreme Court.
Salsa star Celia Cruz is recuperating in N.Y. from 'delicate' surgery
By Lydia Martin. Lmartin@herald.com.
Celia Cruz, one of Cuba's most beloved figures and the world's ''Queen of
Salsa,'' was hospitalized Wednesday night in New York and on Thursday morning
underwent what insiders called ''delicate'' surgery.
But her management did not disclose details.
''She is recuperating and she is stable,'' manager Omer Pardillo said in a
short statement. "Thank you for your messages and your prayers.''
By midafternoon, Spanish-language radio and television began reporting the
sparse information. But they were guarded about going beyond the official word.
In late September, some stations reported that Cruz had died. That speculation
stemmed from the hospitalization of her husband of 40 years, Pedro Knight, who
underwent surgery for colon cancer just after the Latin Grammys.
''People saw Celia in the hospital and they thought she was the one who was
sick,'' said Cruz's publicist Betty Del Rio.
Her career has spanned six decades, more than 100 recordings, endless world
tours and collaborations with the biggest Latin names of all time, including
bandleaders Tito Puente and Johnny Pacheco. But well into her 70s, Cruz had
refused to slow down.
Until Knight's illness, she kept up with a touring schedule that would be
grueling for a performer one-third her age. She has rarely taken more than two
weeks off in a year, spending most of her life aboard jets, Knight at her side.
Lately, the schedule has been light, but just last week, she was in Mexico
performing at a private party.
''I love living on that stage. Without that, I'd die,'' she told The Herald
in 2000.
Cruz has won countless awards, including three Latin Grammys and one U.S.
Grammy, been in films, snagged a Hollywood star on the Walk of Fame and been
immortalized in wax.
This year, she scored one more in an endless string of hits, La Negra Tiene
Tumbao. It's one of her hippest tunes, blending salsa with Latin rap.
When she left Cuba in 1960, she was the island's leading voice and dearest
star. But once she arrived in New York and hooked up with Puente and the salsa
scene, she rose to the ranks of international superstar. | 
