A foe of Castro, Cuban exile was planning to flee

By Madeline Baró Diaz, Vanessa Bauzá & Ruth Morris
Staff Writers

The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday detained anti-Castro militant and alleged bomber Luis Posada Carriles, blunting criticism -- much of it from Havana -- that the United States was harboring a dangerous fugitive even as it wages a war on terrorism overseas.

Federal agents took Posada into custody about 1 p.m. as he prepared to leave the country. Federal authorities did not say why they arrested Posada, but he was detained after withdrawing his petition for political asylum in the United States.

The move came as Cuba ratcheted up the pressure on the U.S. government, holding a massive march in Havana on Tuesday in which hundreds of thousands of people hit the streets to demand the U.S. arrest Posada, a former CIA operative accused of being involved in the 1976 bombing of a Cubana jetliner off the coast of Barbados in which 73 people were killed.

Cuban officials also suspect Posada was involved in a string of bombings at Havana hotels.

Immigration authorities grabbed Posada shortly after he held a news conference under tight security in a Hialeah warehouse where he said he was willing to leave the country.

Posada said he wanted to prevent Cuban President Fidel Castro from using his case to denounce the United States, thereby diverting attention from human rights abuses in the island nation and from a reunion of Cuban dissidents this week.

"The Cuban dictator wants to create an international situation that will damage the image of the United States," said Posada, who surfaced in Miami in March. "Castro ... in the endless speeches that he's made in these past 10 or 12 days is trying to create a smoke screen."

Posada's reappearance in South Florida as the United States wages a war on terror puts the Bush administration in a tough position.

Before Posada's arrest, hundreds of thousands of Cubans marched in Havana, expressing outrage that U.S. officials had not taken him into custody.

For many observers, the controversy echoed the Elián González case, an international custody battle that caused rifts in the Cuban-American community and proved politically embarrassing for the Clinton administration.

Pedro Freyre, a Miami attorney and exile activist, said Posada's arrest would help defuse tensions.

"They're going to get him ... away from Miami, and that's smart too, before this thing blows up," Freyre said.

"If they're smart, they will whisk him away to Podunk, Iowa, and keep him there, deep in the woods. The deeper the better."

Ricardo Alarcón, president of the Cuban National Assembly (parliament), welcomed the news of Posada's detention, but questioned why the U.S. government took so long.

"Do you want us to applaud the fact that he has been arrested after his presence [in the United States] was burning for two months?" Alarcón said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Eduardo Soto, Posada's attorney, said that to his knowledge U.S. officials have not charged his client.

By law, however, U.S. authorities can deport anyone who enters the United States illegally and Posada confirmed Tuesday that he slipped across the Mexican border without reporting to a border agent.

A helicopter whisked Posada from the Krome detention center in southwest Miami-Dade to the Homestead Air Reserve Base Tuesday afternoon, but the federal government released no details on his ultimate destination.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said in a statement that, by law, they had 48 hours to officially determine Posada's immigration status.

"As a matter of immigration law and policy, ICE does not generally remove people to Cuba, nor does ICE generally remove people to countries believed to be acting on Cuba's behalf," the statement said.

That would seem to eliminate Venezuela, which has close ties to the Cuban government and has sought Posada's extradition.

Venezuelan courts twice acquitted Posada, 77, of plotting to bomb the airline but he escaped in 1985 while awaiting a third trial on a prosecutors' appeal.

Legal experts said the United States could deport Posada to a third country with no ties to Cuba or Venezuela.

Posada skipped an asylum interview Tuesday morning because he did not feel well Monday night, Soto said. Posada also feared he would be arrested, the attorney said.

In Havana, Castro kicked off a massive, six-hour march shortly before 8 a.m. on Tuesday with prepared remarks in which he blamed the U.S. government for supporting and organizing attacks, bombings and sabotage attempts against Cuba over the past 46 years.

"Our country has been the object of the most prolonged economic war in history and an incessant and ferocious campaign of terrorism," Castro said. "The terrorism ... was created and developed by the leaders of the United States to destroy our revolution and it has not stopped for an instant during more than four decades."

Cuba's media called Tuesday's march the largest in Havana's history, claiming 1.2 million protesters attended. The march culminated 17 television appearances over the past month in which Castro has lambasted the Bush administration's war on terror as hypocritical and demanded Posada be arrested and extradited to Venezuela.

Hundreds of thousands of students, workers and retirees -- some of them carrying photos of the Cubans who were killed in the airliner bombing -- denounced the Bush administration.

Traffic around the U.S. diplomatic mission was paralyzed for miles and schools, banks and businesses were closed on Tuesday.

On a stage near the U.S. diplomatic mission children and adults shouted slogans while a seemingly endless stream of protesters filed past them: "Punishment for the assassins, punishment for the terrorists," they shouted. "Bush, fascist -- Capture the terrorist!"

At Posada's news conference, his first public appearance since his attorneys and friends confirmed that he had snuck into the United States through Mexico almost two months ago, he denied involvement in the airliner bombing. He also provided the results of polygraph tests conducted by a forensic polygraph examiner who concluded that there was "no deception indicated" when Posada said he was not involved in the downing of the plane.

"I was not involved whatsoever," he said. "I condemn that abominable act."

Posada also dismissed the march in Havana, saying the Cuban government forced most of the participants to attend.

"The marches in Cuba are fabricated by Fidel," he said.

Dressed in a cream suit, Posada, who has a hearing problem and speaks with difficulty because his jaw was shattered during an assassination attempt in Guatemala 15 years ago, said he took a variety of vehicles, including a Greyhound bus to enter the United States from Mexico.

He said he was willing to go into hiding again if necessary.

"I lived 30 years underground and if I have to once again live underground, I will do it," he said.

In Little Havana, about 75 members of the anti-Castro group Vigilia Mambisa held a protest in front of the Versailles restaurant on Calle Ocho to support Posada, praising him as a freedom fighter.

The demonstrators said Castro's demands are a way of shifting focus from a meeting organized by Cuban dissidents and set to begin on Friday in Cuba.

"Fidel Castro is lying," said Victor Martínez, one of the demonstrators. "Castro was and is the first terrorist of Latin America."

But in Cuba, the news of Posada's asylum quest has struck a chord with many Cubans who vividly recall when the Cubana Airlines flight was blown out of the sky, killing Cuba's national fencing team, among others.

"I was a 13-year-old student in the countryside and I still remember it," said Isabel Odalys Stable, 42, a Havana housing department worker, who left her home at 4:30 a.m. to help organize the march.

"This march is not only for the Cuban people but for the American people because they have that man [Posada] in their country," she said. "Bush said he who shelters a terrorist is a terrorist. How can he have him [Posada] in his country?"

Staff Writers McNelly Torres, Rafael Lorente and Ginelle G. Torres and WTVJ-Ch. 6 contributed to this report.

Madeline Baró Diaz can be reached at mbaro@sun-sentinel.com or 305-810-5007.

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