By JUAN O. TAMAYO

Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso has pardoned four Cuban exiles convicted in an alleged plot to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro, government spokesman Mario Rognoni said Thursday.

''They were pardoned Wednesday night and left early this morning in a private jet,'' Rognoni told the Herald in a telephone interview from Panama City.

Three of the men -- Pedro Remón, 59, Guillermo Novo, 65, and Gaspar Jiménez, 68, were flying to Miami and were expected there before noon, said Santiago Alvarez, a Miami exile who helped raise $400,000 for the four's legal defense.

The fourth, Luis Posada Carriles, 77, is believed to be effectively stateless but lived many years in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala before his arrest in Panama City in 2000.

The men were arrested in Panama City after Castro, visiting Panama for a heads-of-state summit, charged at a news conference that the exiles were there to try to assassinate him.

Charges of murder conspiracy and possession of 33 pounds of high explosives were dropped during the lengthy investigation, but in April the four were convicted of endangering safety and were sentenced to seven years in prison. Posada and Jimenez were also convicted of using false passports, and sentenced to another year in prison.