MIAMI (Reuters) -- A powerful Cuban-American exile group denied
                  Monday that it or its late chairman had financed a Cuban exile operative
                  linked to bombings and other violence against Cuba's President Fidel
                  Castro.

                  The Cuban-American National Foundation dismissed as "lies" a New York
                  Times article that quoted the operative, Luis Posada Carriles, as saying he
                  had received money from late CANF Chairman Jorge Mas Canosa to
                  finance his activities.

                  At a raucous Miami news conference at which CANF supporters and
                  officials shouted at a New York Times reporter and called him a liar, the
                  leaders of the foundation and Mas Canosa's son said neither the late
                  chairman nor CANF officials had given money to Posada.

                  In the first of two long articles, the Times reported on Sunday that Posada,
                  who has been linked to a wave of bombings last year at Cuban hotels and
                  restaurants, said he had received more than $200,000 over the years from
                  Mas Canosa, a millionaire businessman who died last November.

                  "These attacks by The New York Times and the reporters involved with the
                  story are offensive, slanderous and defamatory," Mas Canosa's son Jorge
                  Mas Santos said. "There is absolutely no truth, no truth to any of the
                  allegations that were made in that story."

                  Mas Santos said his father knew Posada decades ago but "did not sustain
                  any relationship with Luis Posada, did not fund any of his activities and had
                  no contact nor supported what Luis Posada stands for and represents."

                  One of the two writers of the Times article, Larry Rohter, attended the news
                  conference at CANF's headquarters west of Miami. CANF officials said
                  they had asked him to leave but he had refused.

                  Each time he tried to ask a question, he was shouted down by CANF
                  supporters, and at the end he was herded from the room.

                  CANF, which has been considered a leading player in the formation of U.S.
                  policy toward Cuba, publicly espouses Castro's removal through peaceful
                  means.

                  The group's voice has been heard by Presidents Ronald Reagan, George
                  Bush and Bill Clinton, but some analysts say its influence has waned since
                  the death of Mas Canosa and the landmark visit to Cuba in January of Pope
                  John Paul II, who criticised the long-standing U.S. embargo against Castro's
                  government.

                  Mas Santos and CANF officials accused the Times of waging a campaign to
                  destroy the organization's credibility to promote the lifting of U.S. sanctions
                  on Cuba.

                  In the Times article, Posada was quoted as saying he did not know if the
                  cash he received came from Mas Canosa personally or from the CANF.
                  But he said Mas Canosa supervised the flow of money and support.

                  "Jorge controlled everything," Posada told the newspaper. "Whenever I
                  needed money, he said to give me $5,000, give me $10,000, give me
                  $15,000, and they sent it to me."

                  The Times said it was unclear why the formerly publicity-shy Posada, who is
                  70, had agreed to two days of interviews at what was described only as "a
                  walled Caribbean compound."

                  At the end of Monday's news conference, CANF officials allowed a
                  reporter from the Miami outlet of the Spanish-language Univision television
                  network to play a videotape described as a new interview with Posada. In it
                  a man denied CANF had paid him to carry out bombings and assassination
                  attempts to overthrow Castro.

                  "Is it true that Jorge Mas Canosa personally supervised, as this New York
                  Times article says, the handover of money and logistical backup for violent
                  actions in Cuba?" the interviewer asked.

                  "Completely false," the man replied. "It is a lie." Rohter said after the news
                  conference that he stood by the Times story. Later, after watching the video,
                  he said that the man shown appeared to be the same one who had spoken
                  to the Times and that he appeared "for the most part" to contradict what he
                  had told the newspaper.