BY FRANCES ROBLES

  PANAMA

  The Panama trial of four Cuban exiles accused of a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro has been postponed indefinitely, a defense attorney said. It had been set to start today.

  Luis Posada Carriles, considered Cuba's most wanted terrorist, was arrested in Panama City in late 2000 along with three Miami-Dade County men -- Gaspar Jiménez,
  Guillermo Novo and Pedro C. Remón -- accused of plotting to kill Castro with a bomb while he attended a presidential summit in Panama.

  Thirty-eight months later, the four have yet to stand trial for possession of explosives, threatening public safety and illicit association.

  Novo and Posada also are charged with carrying false passports.

  The Cuban government released a statement Tuesday expressing ''worry and indignation'' over the ''maneuvers'' by defense attorney Rogelio Cruz to delay the trial.

  Cruz acknowledged that the latest delay was caused by a change in judges that defense attorneys requested. Judge Enrique Paniza was replaced last month by Judge José
  Ho Juistiniani after Cruz raised questions about Paniza's impartiality. Ho postponed the trial after saying he had not had time to rule on important evidence.

  But Cruz said he did not want the delay.

  Posada, 75, was acquitted in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban jetliner that killed 73 people but escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985 while awaiting a prosecution appeal.

  The former CIA operative acknowledged and later denied bankrolling a string of 1997 Havana hotel bombings that killed a tourist.

  The other defendants all have links to various attacks on Cuban government targets over the past four decades.

  If convicted on the Panamanian charges, they could face seven years in prison.