Panama criticized for freeing exiles

By Hugh Dellios, Tribune foreign correspondent. Tribune news services contributed to this report

MEXICO CITY -- A storm of controversy over the pardon of four Cuban exiles accused of plotting to kill Fidel Castro will greet Secretary of State Colin Powell on Wednesday when he flies to Panama for the swearing-in of the new president, Martin Torrijos.

Panama's departing president, Mireya Moscoso, released the four men last week, days before relinquishing power, igniting criticism across the region as well as suspicions of U.S. election-year meddling and hypocrisy in dealing with alleged terrorists.

Three of the freed Cuban exiles flew triumphantly to Miami on the day before President Bush was to appear at a campaign rally there. The fourth--an alleged bomber of hotels and a civilian jetliner--is thought to have flown to Honduras, where the government has vowed to toss him out if they can find him.

The State Department last week denied that the United States was instrumental in the last-minute pardons amid an intense battle for South Florida's Cuban exile vote in the U.S. presidential election campaign. Moscoso has been close to Washington.

But the U.S. and Panama also are facing criticism for their soft treatment of the four alleged plotters in the midst of a global campaign against terrorism. All four have been tied to previous plots against Castro and his allies.

One of them, Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative accused of killing 73 people by blowing up a Cuban plane over Venezuela in 1976, is being hunted in Honduras, where government authorities think he got off the plane that carried his accomplices to Miami.

"If Posada Carriles is in Honduras, he will be punished and deported to Panama for violating our immigration laws," Honduran President Ricardo Maduro said at a news conference Monday. "The person who remained here . . . might use our nation's territory to carry out terrorist or drug-trafficking activities or to commit crimes."

Officials in Guatemala and El Salvador made clear that Posada was not welcome there either.

Plot alleged in pardons

Castro was quick to allege a U.S. plot in the "unjustifiable pardons" of the "four terrorists." Cuba broke off relations with Panama and on Tuesday announced it had canceled plans to send a representative to Wednesday's inauguration.

Panamanian prosecutors had accused the four exiles of plotting to blow up Castro at a 2000 summit of Latin American leaders in Panama. A court eventually dropped charges of conspiracy to commit murder and possession of explosives, saying there was not enough evidence.

Nevertheless, the four were convicted in April of endangering public safety and falsifying documents. They were sentenced to up to 8 years in prison.

While no one has presented hard evidence of U.S. involvement in the pardons, Cuban officials said the four men received help from U.S.-based exiles in arranging a charter flight out of Panama and that the three who have U.S. passports were welcomed home at Opa-locka Airport in Miami-Dade County by relatives and supporters.

In Washington, the Bush administration quickly distanced itself from the events. Florida newspapers reported that FBI agents and U.S. immigration officials questioned the three exiles in Miami.

"We never lobbied the Panamanian government to pardon anyone involved in this case," State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said.

Moscoso also denied U.S. influence. She said she granted the pardons out of fear that one of her successors could deport the four men to Cuba or Venezuela, where they might be executed.

Yet administration critics charged that the pardons could help Bush as he campaigns for the Cuban exile vote in Florida. Support there was instrumental in his victory in 2000 but may have slipped since.

"It's surprising that the administration hasn't at least expressed consternation about the release of people who are alleged terrorists," said Geoff Thale, a senior associate at the Washington Office on Latin America, a liberal think tank.

Exiles deny Castro allegations

Three of the exiles--Gaspar Jimenez, 69, Pedro Remon, 60, and Guillermo Novo, 65--have faced indictments or otherwise been linked to various bombing plots, kidnappings and other attacks against Cuban and leftist targets since the 1970s.

Posada, 76, was seen as the ringleader. He trained with the CIA for the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, although his unit never landed. He escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985 while facing charges of bombing the Cuban airliner. He once admitted to participating in the 1997 bombing of six Havana hotels in which an Italian tourist was killed.

The four men deny the latest Castro plot. They say they fell into a trap in Panama, where they had gone to meet a defecting Cuban army general, only to be arrested after Castro denounced them in public.

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