STATEMENT FROM THE CUBAN MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

THE Ministry of Foreign Affairs learned at midday yesterday, April 20, that Judge José Hoo Justiniani had dictated the sentences on Luis Posada Carriles, Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, Guillermo Novo Sampol and Pedro Remón, terrorists of Cuban origin arrested in Panama for planning the assassination of our president in November 2000, on the occasion of the 10th Ibero-American Summit in that country. Also convicted was José Manuel Hurtado, a Cuban residing in Panama who was in charge of the logistics for the failed terrorist action.

This sentence is the culmination of a period of three and a half years plagued by irregularities, constant escape plans, pressures from the terrorist Miami mafia and attempts by the defense to misrepresent, corrupt and hamper the judicial process.

According to the judgement, Luis Posada Carriles and Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo have been sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment, while Novo Sampol, Remón and Hurtado were sentenced to seven.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs believes that while the responsibility of all of the accused in this process has been completely proven and the terrorists were found guilty of some of the crimes attributed to them, the sentences imposed do not match the seriousness of the acts committed in the Republic of Panama.

That is explained by the manner in which the acting judge considered the attributed crimes. In each case, the terrorists were convicted of acts implying crimes against public security, and in the case of the first two, also for the falsification of public documents.

However, the attention of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is forcibly struck by the fact that the acting judge has decided – as he literally states in the text of the sentence pronounced – that "the charges for the crime of illegal association with criminal intent and possession of explosives are declared null." That decision thwarts the possibility of the terrorists being punished for the most serious crimes, which were moreover completely proven during the trial proceedings. That has thus resulted in the sentences imposed on the terrorists being in every way insufficient.

According to information possessed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, both the Attorney General of the Republic of Panama, as well as the prosecuting lawyers representing the social, trade union, student and indigenous peoples organizations whose members would have perished if the planned act of terrorism had been executed in the auditorium of the University of Panama, have expressed their intention of appealing this ruling, given that, like Cuba, they consider the sentences imposed to be inadequate.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is currently closely studying the ruling in all its scope and foreseeable consequences, and will keep our people duly informed.

Havana, April 21, 2004