Cuban exiles accused of link to explosives

BY FRANCES ROBLES

  PANAMA CITY - They are an unlikely crew, four aging Cuban exiles, an ex-con, a Panamanian chauffeur, his nephew and a neighbor -- all charged with plotting to set off 33 pounds of explosives.

  Luis Posada Carriles, an alleged terrorist once acquitted of an airliner bombing, is accused by the Cuban government of conspiring to blow up President Fidel Castro during a summit in Panama City three years ago, took center stage at their court hearing. But after two days of pretrial hearings, defense lawyers argue that prosecutors have yet to put the C-4 explosives in the hands of the 75-year-old former fugitive or his anti-Castro buddies.

  A judge is expected to decide today whether there is enough evidence to go forward with a trial for all the defendants.

  ''Prosecutors are bad accountants,'' defense lawyer Rogelio Cruz said. ``They add up debts and not the credits. In the end, the balance is wrong.''

  For now, the only one investigators can directly pin the bag of explosives to is a driver Posada hired who found the bag and led police to the spot where he had buried it. Driver José Manuel Hurtado, his nephew and a friend who helped hide it are all facing seven years in prison.

  But Prosecutor Arquímedes Sáez isn't really after them. He's going for Posada and Miamians Pedro Remón, Gaspar Jiménez and Guillermo Novo, men with decades-long histories of anti-Castro terror tactics.

  ''They're trying to say we can only put the explosives in the hands of José Hurtado . . . the little black Panamanian,'' Sáez said. ``The rest of them are angels.''

  The four Cuban exiles refused to offer DNA samples to test against hair fibers found in the explosives here, lawyers on both sides said.

  Sáez asserts that the men came in through Panama by way of the Costa Rica border in order to smuggle in the explosives, which would have been detected at Panama
  City's airport. The defendants, he said, failed to offer convincing evidence to support their cover story: that they were in Panama City during the summit to help the
  defection of a high-ranking Cuban intelligence officer -- a man they didn't even know.

  The defendants have already served three years since being arrested at the Ibero-American Summit, where Castro announced their presence. Castro was scheduled to
  speak at a university here, a place the driver has said the men staked out during their stay.

  A Panama-based Cuban businessman is also charged; he is footing the defense bill for his driver Hurtado, who got stuck holding the bag.