NEW YORK (AP) -- A Cuban exile admitted to a series of bombings and assassination attempts aimed at deposing Fidel Castro and says his activities were financed by influential Cuban-American leaders, The New York Times reported Sunday.

Luis Posada Carriles, in a series of interviews with the Times, said he organized a series of bombings in Cuba last year at hotels, discos and restaurants, killing an Italian tourist in September.

Posada, who was trained in demolition and guerrilla warfare by the Central Intelligence Agency, said the bombings were supported by the anti-Castro Cuban-American National Foundation in Miami.

Jorge Mas Canosa, the group's founder and leader who died last year, had visited Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton at the White House and was a force in Florida and national elections.

Miami group denies link to bombings

Foundation officials declined to be interviewed by the Times and would only release a brief statement denying a link to the bombings.

In a similar statement sent to The Associated Press on Saturday, the foundation called the allegations "malicious" and said they echo those earlier made by Castro.

"Any allegation, implication or suggestion that members of the Cuban-American National Foundation have financed any alleged 'acts of violence' against the Castro regime are totally and patently false," the statement said.

The foundation has said it wants to bring down Cuba's communist government only through peaceful means, but Posada said foundation leaders financed his operations -- with Mas supervising the money flow.

'Whenever I needed money ... they sent it to me'

Mas sent him more than $200,000 over the years, Posada estimated.

"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," he said.

Posada, 70, who has survived several attempts on his life, has long refused to talk to journalists.

The newspaper said he recently told a friend he feared he would not live long enough to tell his story.

Posada agreed to meet with the Times at a walled Caribbean compound provided his residence, alias and location of the interviews not be reported.

'We didn't want to hurt anybody'

Posada proudly admitted to last year's hotel bombings, describing them as acts of war intended to cripple a totalitarian regime by depriving it of international tourism and investment.

"We didn't want to hurt anybody," he said. "We just wanted to make a big scandal so that the tourists don't come anymore."

Posada said Mas was aware of the hotel bombings, which were organized from El Salvador and Guatemala. Posada described the tourist's death as a freak accident.

"It is sad that someone is dead, but we can't stop," he said. "The Italian was sitting in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon, a 25-year-old Salvadoran, was arrested in Havana last September for allegedly carrying out six of the hotel attacks.

Posada said Cruz Leon was working for him and that as many as a dozen others reporting to him remained at large.

Posada is a veteran of the exiles' secret war against Castro. He was charged and twice acquitted of a terrorist bombing in 1976 that killed 73 people on a Cuban-bound jetliner that took off from Venezuela.

Despite his acquittals, Venezuelan authorities kept him in jail for nine years until his escape in 1985. He settled in El Salvador under an assumed name.

Copyright 1998 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.