• Lack of a detonator has turned Posada Carriles, the hemisphere’s
                   most dangerous terrorist, into a common criminal

                   BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD (Special for Granma International)

                   FOR lack of a simple detonator fuse, the hemisphere’s most
                   dangerous terrorist — responsible for an explosion on board a
                   Cubana airliner and an extremely long list of attacks in the United
                   States and other countries — will not stand trial for attempting to kill
                   Fidel by dynamiting a University of Panama auditorium, which would
                   have resulted in deaths and injuries of hundreds of students and
                   professors.

                   This was the decision coldly announced by Prosecutor Dimas
                   Guevara at a press conference this week: Luis Posada Carriles, alias
                   Ramón Medina, along with many other false names, will only face
                   minor charges, even though he walked about Panama City with
                   boxes of C-4 explosives... because he didn’t have a detonator fuse.
                   No one had mentioned that object before, and it must have
                   disappeared in a clearly opportunistic way.

                   Posada Carriles was arrested and continues to be detained in
                   Panama along with Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, alias “Manuel Díaz,”
                   the same Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) activist who
                   traveled to Venezuela with $26,000 USD sent by Más Canosa to
                   bribe guards in the prison where Posada Carriles was serving time.

                   Some years ago, Jiménez was imprisoned in Mexico for his
                   involvement in the July 23, 1976, murder of D’Artagnan Díaz Díaz, a
                   Cuban fishing technician working in Mexico.

                   Among Posada’s three accomplices are another “famous” Miami
                   terrorist: no less than Guillermo Novo Sampoli, Bay of Pigs
                   mercenary and member of the CIA’s Operation 40 group of killers,
                   imprisoned and later “absolved” of the murder of former Chilean
                   foreign minister Orlando Letelier and human rights activist Ronnie
                   Moffit.

                   In 1964, that same individual fired a bazooka at the United Nations
                   Building in New York.

                   The fourth detainee, Pedro Crispin Remón, well-known CANF ally, is
                   also a confirmed terrorist. But this won’t be of interest to the
                   Panamanian high court’s public prosecutor. Six other persons, all
                   Panamanians, were investigated in the case. None of them has been
                   arrested.

                   The truth is that Prosecutor Guevara is well aware of his clients’
                   complete history. He knows that from the moment they were
                   arrested, Posada and his accomplices have not only received large
                   amounts of money but also numerous visits from representatives of
                   that same Miami mafia that made possible the attempt on the
                   university auditorium.

                   If the plan had worked, it would have caused monstrous carnage.

                   15 MONTHS AND 33 VOLUMES...

                   Guevara needed 15 months of investigations and a 33-volume
                   prosecutor’s report to decide that the fuse wasn’t included in the
                   material evidence.

                   According to Mexican news agency Notimex, the prosecutor pointed
                   out: “Among the charges established was possession of a dangerous
                   high explosive that would be used for a specific purpose, but the
                   detonating fuse wasn’t found. That’s why we couldn’t charge them
                   with attempted homicide.”

                   Thus the public prosecutor in the high court, as if dealing with any old
                   crime, simply announced that “no evidence of attempted homicide
                   existed” and referred the proceedings to the Superior Court of
                   Justice, which in turn will send the case to a lower court, a
                   prosecutor’s office or a circuit judge.

                   So Posada, Jiménez, Novo and Remón could be charged with
                   possession of explosives, endangering public safety, and illicit
                   association to commit a crime.

                   AFP explains that Panamanian law establishes four to seven years in
                   prison for illegal possession of explosives and two to six years for
                   endangering public safety.

                   Posada and his troop were detained on November 18, 2000; they
                   may soon be freed, if a court decides to take into consideration the
                   time they have spent in custody.

                   One more detail: Rogelio Cruz, the lawyer defending Posada, Novo,
                   Jiménez and Remón, found fame defending Panamanian drug lords.
                   The big fat fees for his current case are being paid for by marathon
                   fundraising programs on Miami’s Radio Mambí, aided by the CANF
                   mafia, terrorist group Consejo para la Libertad de Cuba (Council for
                   Freedom for Cuba), Alpha 66, and Comandos-L, experts in collecting
                   dollars from their fanatical followers.

                   A strange occurrence: two weeks ago, Cruz had already given an
                   exclusive to the Miami media that Panama’s public prosecutor “didn’t
                   have enough evidence” to try Posada Carriles and his accomplices for
                   attempted homicide. And he dared to predict that the four terrorists
                   would be released on bail “before May.”