Cuban exiles include former CIA operative

PANAMA CITY, Panama (AP) -- President Mireya Moscoso on Thursday pardoned four Cuban emigres who had been accused of trying to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro.

The island's government earlier had said that such a move would automatically sever relations between the two countries

Moscoso, who hands over the presidency on September 1 to Martin Torrijos, had earlier denied Cuban government claims that she planned to pardon the four exiles.

Expressing anger at the tone of Cuban complaints, she withdrew her country's ambassador from the island this week and ordered the Cuban ambassador here to leave.

The four Cuban exiles include Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative who Cuba said led the plan to kill Castro at a summit meeting here in November 2000.

Cuba earlier had protested the seven- and eight-year prison sentences imposed on the men, saying they were not tough enough.

But Panamanian courts ruled there was not enough evidence to accuse the men of attempted murder or on other serious charges such as possession of explosives.

Posada and Cuban-American Gaspar Jimenez were sentenced to eight years for endangering public safety and falsifying documents. Cuban-Americans Guillermo Novo and Pedro Remon got seven years for endangering public safety.

The defendants maintained they were in Panama to help a Cuban general who supposedly had planned to seek political asylum.

Posada, who once escaped from a Venezuelan prison while awaiting retrial on charges he blew up a Cuban airliner, and Cuban-American Gaspar Jimenez were convicted of endangering public safety and falsifying documents and sentenced to eight years each.

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press.