State Department denies he aided suspected plane bomber

By TRACEY EATON / The Dallas Morning News

HAVANA – A top Cuban official on Friday accused Bush appointee Otto Reich of aiding an anti-Castro activist who had been accused in the 1976 bombing of a
Cuban airliner.

A State Department official called the allegation "patently false."

Ricardo Alarcón, president of Cuba's National Assembly made the accusation during an online forum aimed at unveiling an anti-terrorism Web site.

Mr. Reich, now head of the State Department's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, has longtime and close ties to the "worst anti-Cuba terrorists," including
suspected bomber Orlando Bosch, Mr. Alarcón said during the forum in Havana.

The charge came as the United States and Cuba continued to accuse each other of not doing enough to prevent terrorism.

The Cubans link Mr. Bosch to the October 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner traveling from Barbados to Jamaica. All 73 passengers were killed, including Cuba's
24-member Olympic fencing team.

Authorities in Venezuela arrested Mr. Bosch and said he masterminded the crime.

Mr. Bosch publicly applauded the bombing, calling it a legitimate wartime act but didn't admit being an active participant.

Cuban authorities allege that Mr. Bosch was behind dozens of anti-Castro bombings in the late 1960s and 1970s. He is something of a celebrity among hard-line
exiles in Miami, which celebrated Orlando Bosch Day in 1968 while he was under arrest for a bazooka attack.

Mr. Bosch, now in his early 80s, spent 11 years in prison in connection with the airline bombing, as the case dragged through Venezuelan courts. He was acquitted
in 1987 and moved to Miami..

Cuban authorities allege that Mr. Reich, an anti-Castro Cuban-American who was U.S. ambassador to Venezuela from 1986 to 1989, helped Mr. Bosch get out of
jail and settle in South Florida.

The State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, denied the claims.

"Otto Reich worked tirelessly to get Venezuela to take Bosch back," he said. "I've been in meetings with Otto Reich and he's said, 'I've never met the man.' "

During the introduction of the new Cuban Web site – at www.antiterroristas.cu – Mr. Alarcón also pressed for the release of five Cubans convicted of
espionage-related charges in South Florida.

The spies were only trying to prevent anti-Castro organizations from staging attacks on Cuba, Mr. Alarcón said.

"Their only crime was to combat and fight terrorism," yet they were convicted and received "irrational and severe sentences," he said.

Mainstream American media, Mr. Alarcón said, paid little attention to the case, and so the Cuban government is trying to spread word about it on the Internet.

The State Department official said he believes the spies received a fair trial.

"I think our system of justice has pretty good credibility and I'll stand by it," he said.