Exiles deny plot on Castro
Say they hoped to help general
BY FRANCES ROBLES
The Miami exiles arrested in Panama last month in an alleged assassination
plot
against Fidel Castro say they weren't at the Ibero-American Summit
to kill the
Cuban president, but there to help one of Cuba's top intelligence
generals defect.
Four Cuban exiles, including three from Miami, were arrested Nov.
17 in Panama
City, hours after Castro held a press conference saying his foes
were hatching a
plan to murder him. Longtime anti-Castro plotters Luis Posada
Carriles, Pedro
Remón, Guillermo Novo and Gaspar Jiménez have been
charged with "illicit
association'' and possession of explosives.
Through their attorney, the men have denied any link to the 18
pounds of plastic
explosives found in a car near Panama City's airport. On Thursday,
Rogelio Cruz,
the lawyer for the group, announced in Panama that the arrested
men were
framed -- set up by the very man they were there to rescue: top
Cuban security
officer Eduardo Delgado, who headed Cuba's main espionage agency
for years.
"It was a trap,'' Cruz told The Herald.
He offered no proof of the allegation, and Cuban diplomats in
Washington, D.C.
could not be reached late Thursday to comment on it.
A Cuban exile in Miami close to Posada and aware of many of his
activities said
the lawyer's claim of a trap was bogus, likely concocted as an
effort to justify the
exiles' presence in Panama.
``It could be, but if we can show it's not a tale, then it's not
a tale,'' Cruz said.
``There will be evidence.''
He declined to offer any.
If true, the defection would be a major blow to the Cuban government.
Delgado
was identified last year as the Cuban spy master who allegedly
ran the plot to
ambush two Brothers to the Rescue airplanes. He is the same intelligence
veteran who was chief investigator in the notorious 1989 drug
trafficking trial of
Angola war hero Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa.
Miami developer Santiago Alvarez, identified by Cuban officials
as one of the
assassination plotters, said Delgado secretly began working with
exile activists
after the 1996 Ibero-American Summit in Chile. Earlier this year,
he allegedly told
them through intermediaries and emails that he planned to leave
the communist
island, but wanted to meet with a high-ranking exile he could
trust.
Posada, mastermind of the string of 1997 bombings in Havana, sneaked
into
Panama to meet Delgado, Alvarez said.