December 15, 1983

By JIM McGEE

In Miami, terrorism almost always goes unpunished.

Few of the most vicious and tragic crimes attributed to anti-Castro terrorism in Miami during the past decade ever led to convictions. The murders, the bombings, the threats - nearly all are listed as unsolved crimes.

In Little Havana, where terrorist groups seek funds and influence, the intimidation is real. Terrorists seem to be untouchable.

Traditional police methods often fail to crack bombing conspiracies when motives are political, victims are frightened and witnesses are uncooperative.

Time after time, terrorism investigators hit a stone wall of silence in the exile community. Potential informants won't talk. Witnesses refuse to testify, even when threatened with jail.

"They [the exile community] do not want to help us," says Miami Police Maj. Paul Oboz. "To the extent they suffer from this, they bring it upon themselves."

But a Herald inquiry found other problems:

The Miami Police Department's relationship with the FBI on terrorism cases has been compromised by an unexplained leak and the associations of some Cuban detectives who socialized with suspected terrorists or sympathized with the goals of anti-Castro militants.

Three police officers between 1977 and 1980 were disciplined or asked to be transferred because of their associations with suspected terrorists or anti-Castro militants, The Herald learned.

In 1979, some of the department's secret intelligence reports, including intercepted plans for a bombing attack at Miami International Airport, fell into the hands of suspected terrorists.

Terrorism investigations have been hurt by the FBI's distrust of local police and the agency's traditional reluctance to share information or work closely with local detectives.

In 1981, Miami FBI agents, at the request of a source, withheld from police information about a unique style of bomb recovered in Little Havana. Later, police bomb squad technicians had to dismantle two similar bombs without studying the first device. Police say FBI agents apologized privately.

In 1978, the FBI decided not to tell police about an FBI informant in the bombing of former WQBA News Director Emilio Milian. The investigation stalled. Later, after police stumbled on the same informant, his testimony was used to obtain a grand jury indictment.

Of the more than 80 attacks during the past decade that were publicly linked to terrorism less than 10 per cent have led to convictions.

"There is a taste of frustation in the Cuban people about the unsolved cases of terrorism," said Milian. "Impunity for the terrorists, that is the fact that prevails."

But some authorities say the record is deceptive. Failing to convict terrorists for hard-to-prove bombings, officials sometimes resort to less traditional methods.

FBI agents "neutralize" suspected terrorists by contacting the leaders directly or conducting extensive surveillance. Local police prosecute them for other crimes.

"It keeps them guessing and it slows them down," said Joseph Dawson, who supervised the FBI's terrorist squad in Miami until 1979. ". . . Most of the perpetrators of most of the bombings have been arrested."

Some exiles think these tactics are unfair.

"There have been many illegal things done against Cubans in this town by the FBI and the police," said Ramon Sanchez, who is currently jailed for refusing to answer questions about Omega 7.

For some Cuban-born detectives, anti-Castro terrorism investigations pose "a kind of identity crisis," according to one police official who asked to remain anonymous.

The anti-Castro sentiments of Cuban detectives is a "very real problem" in terrorism investigations, according to Col. Steve Bertucelli, who once directed a team of terrorism investigators at the Metro-Dade Police Organized Crime Bureau.

The Herald examined three previously unreported cases in which Cuban Miami police detectives once assigned to terrorism cases requested transfers or were disciplined because of their associations with suspected terrorists or anti-Castro militants.

"There have been a few investigators that might have given indications they sort of admired those individuals," acknowledged Oboz, who heads the Miami Police Department's intelligence unit. "It's just the hazards of the game."

The impact of such cases on the relationship between the FBI and police department is hard to measure. But the security of sensitive intelligence information is a touchy subject with the FBI and with the Miami police intelligence unit that handles terrorism cases.

That concern prompted a police inquiry that began last week after The Herald asked about an alleged leak of sensitive police intelligence reports in 1979.

The episode began when a police informant reported that members of the terrorist coalition CORD (Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations] were planning to blow up an airline making flights to Cuba from Miami International Airport.

In an effort to derail the plot, police Detectives Sergio Pinion and Ozzie Austin met with FBI Agent George Kiszynski. Police sources say they gave the FBI agent copies of an intelligence report on the plot and police background sheets on the suspects.

Somehow, some of those documents fell into the hands of the airlines' security guard service. And later, a police informant reported that CORD suspects had actually seen copies of the original intelligence report about the bombing plot.

A 1980 police internal security investigation report does not resolve the matter, but tends to focus on Kiszynski because he had accidentally left his briefcase for several hours with suspected terrorists. Kiszynski declined to comment.

FBI officials have asked that the 1980 police investigation be reopened because one of the leaked documents was dated after Kiszynski mislaid his briefcase.

"We believe firmly that that information did not come from us or this agency," said Joseph Corless, FBI special-agent-in-charge.

This previously unreported incident explains part of the on-again off-again relationship between the Miami Police Department and the Miami FBI office - a relationship that is crucial to the success of terrorism investigations.

"The discretion of law enforcement agencies has not always been the best in handling information," said Arthur Nehrbass, formerly head of the Miami FBI office and now commander of the Metro-Dade Organized Crime Bureau. "So there is a dilemma."

In the past, this distrust, coupled with FBI secrecy regulations, undercut important investigations. In one case, police say it was potentially dangerous.

In September 1981, FBI agents decided, at the request of a confidential source, to withhold from local police information on an unusual style of bomb that they recovered in Little Havana.

"It was information [from an FBI source] that was given in confidence," said Jim Freeman, FBI assistant-special-agent-in-charge.

Five months later, police bomb squad technicians were called to defuse two nearly identical bombs found in Little Havana. They handled the bombs without the benefit of studying the first device.

Later, FBI agents admitted the unreported bomb recovery, according to police, but only after a police detective accidentally found out about the earlier bomb. Police officials say FBI agents apologized privately.

FBI spokesman Chris Mazzella said the FBI never apologized, but did offer an explanation. He said FBI officials had decided that police bomb squad technicians did not need to know about the earlier bomb.

"I don't see the same instance happening again," Corless said.

During the investigation of the 1976 bombing of former WQBA News Director Milian, an FBI informant told a Miami agent he could provide information on the bombing.

The agent continued meeting with the informant and eventually wrote him off as unreliable. But the FBI did not share the information with Miami police detectives who were also investigating the Milian bombing.

Months later, police found the same informant independently and he became their most important witness. He passed polygraph tests, testified under oath, and was used to secure an indictment that was later dismissed.

"It's a judgment call in a lot of these things," said former' FBI supervisor Dawson, who supervised Miami terrorism investigations at the time.

This two-track approach to terrorism cases in Miami is a blind spot that was identified in a federally-funded study of Dade County terrorism investigations in 1979.

"The [FBI], as an institution, tends to pretend to an infallibility it does not have," said Tony Cooper, the counterterrorism consultant who prepared the report. ". . .Very often, there is more expertise on this in local taw enforcement than there is in the Bureau."

To ease the problem, Corless granted top secret security clearances last year to a handful of police detectives. The idea was to increase the flow of information.

"I don't have those concerns with security [eaks] about that group we're working with," Corless said.

Police say seven Miami officers lave been formally cleared to receive FBI information on terrorism and they attend occasional briefings on Omega 7. Metro-Dade Police detectives also received the clearance.

"I am very satisfied with the kind of relationship we have with the FBI," said Assistant Police Chief Robert Warshaw. "It is something hat is growing and building on a daily basis."

But one police official maintains, "They [the FBI] have a lot of information they are still not willing to share." And the new relationship rarely translates into coordinated action.

Miami police are generally not included in the day-to-day investigation into the Omega 7 terrorist group. They were not part of the takeout in July that led to the capture of alleged Omega 7 leader Eduardo Arocena.

After the arrest of Arocena, however, police bomb squad technicians helped FBI agents catalogue the array of automatic weapons and bomb-making components found inside his apartment.

"We try to complement each other," Corless explained.

The FBI's role in terrorism cases is crucial. The international character of such political conspiracies often put such cases beyond the reach of municipal police agencies.

Yet some officials say that in recent years the Miami FBI office has suffered from a gradual loss of agents who are familiar with the twists and turns of terrorism cases. There is also a shortage of Spanish-speaking agents.

"They don't have the cadre of seasoned investigators who are used to these types of investigations, which are unique," said a Justice Department official familiar with the conclusions of FBI headquarters. He asked not to be named.

Corless rejects that assertion. He says Miami agents have made important contributions to the Omega 7 investigation that have not yet been made public.

"We still have [experienced terrorism investigators] in this office who have been, here for a good number of years," he said.

But there have been recent problems.

In 1982, FBI agents botched one of the most important Miami assignments in the Omega 7 investigation - conducting an electronic surveillance of suspect Pedro Remon.

Remon spotted two FBI agents following him in a van and guessed that his car was bugged. An associate who was with Remon at the time says he searched the car and discovered an FBI transmitter and "beeper" hidden under the dashboard.

FBI officials refuse to confirm or deny the surveillance.

During this same period, FBI inspectors reviewed work by the squad of Miami FBI agents then assigned to terrorism cases and found evidence of carelessness in the Omega 7 investigation, The Herald learned.

Corless said the criticism involved administrative matters.

"There is no portion of that [inspection] report dealing with that investigation [Omega 71 that comments on investigative deficiencies at all," said Corless.

Part of the problem is the dramatic increase of FBI responsibilities in Miami as a result of an expanded role in drug enforcement. The work load has strained the resources of the local field office.

At one point during the course of the Omega 7 case, Miami FBI agents were unable to carry out at least one important investigative assignment.

FBI agents from New York identified a key suspect who lived in South Florida and urged that he be put under surveillance. But FBI agents in Miami were busy on other cases.

Faced with abandoning a potentially crucial lead, FBI officials in New York decided to do the job themselves and dispatched a team of agents to Miami.

For two weeks, they worked out of a Miami Holiday Inn. They used their own radios and rented their own cars.

"The fact that we were shorthanded and they assisted us . . . is a fair statement," said Freeman.

" . . We are investigating [Omega 7] very aggressively:'

If asked, most Miami Cuban exiles say they reject domestic terrorism, yet most also tend to support the anti-Castro goals of the terrorists.

In a Herald survey this year, 76 per cent of the Cubans polled said they disagreed with anti-Castro terrorist violence inside the United States. But, on another question, 78 per cent favored U.S. support for anti-Castro groups.

These mixed feelings surface in terrorism investigations.

"Many people in the Cuban community are afraid to come forward and cooperate because these pseudo-patriots will accuse them of being pro-Castro," Nehrbass said. "That would be the kiss of death."

During the late 1970's, three Miami grand juries generally failed to pierce this veil of silence.

The Herald obtained FBI reports from 1976 and 1978 that identify the exiles the FBI said were Miami's leading terrorists. Many of the major suspects were never convicted in terrorism cases.

Despite the recent progress in the Omega 7 investigation, Oboz said things are unlikely to change.

"We just have to be satisfied with [fewer prosecutions]," he said. "It's probably going to stay that way. We're going to probably solve one or two [bombings] here along the way, but . . . it's going to be by luck."