THE POSADA CASE

                   BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD -Special for Granma International-

                   FACED with the failure of their misinformation campaigns that attempted to
                   influence the course of Panamanian justice, Cuban-American groups
                   supporting international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles are now openly
                   attacking Judge Enrique Paniza, who is responsible for the case. They have
                   done so in a threatening document that could be ignored if it wasn’t for the
                   fact that its authors have lengthy careers linked to terrorism.

                   In an open letter to Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso, several leaders
                   from organizations that have supported, promoted and financed terrorist
                   activities, insult the judge and Panamanian justice in general with a degree of
                   aggressiveness that, in the midst of a trial, constitutes a profound lack of
                   respect and a blatant attempt at intimidation and blackmail, once again taking
                   up the terms used in court by the conspirators’ narco-lawyer, Rogelio Cruz, a
                   former Panamanian state attorney who was dismissed for his affiliations with
                   Colombian drug cartels.

                   The friends of this group of notorious hired assassins currently facing
                   Panamanian justice - Luis Posada Carriles, Guillermo Novo Sampoll, Pedro
                   Crispín Remón and Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo - are claiming that the judge (a
                   respected member of the Panamanian magistracy) “allowed the interruption
                   of the defense lawyers’ summing up.

                   They make no reference to a threatening interruption by Guillermo Novo
                   Sampoll in the middle of the hearing, when he shouted at prosecution lawyer
                   Rafael Rodríguez in front of the whole court. Novo is identified in FBI
                   documents presented during the trial as one of the principal leaders of the
                   criminal groups that have been sowing terror from New Jersey to Florida for
                   decades.

                   It goes on to accuse “a branch of the government, namely the Ministry of
                   Foreign Affairs” of “ignoring the laws of the Republic of Panama regarding
                   extradition applications by foreign governments,” for not having addressed
                   extradition requests presented by Cuba and Venezuela against Santiago
                   Alvarez Fernández-Magriña and Luis Posada Carriles.

                   Alvarez is a notorious Miami terrorist directly linked to the Cuban-American
                   National Foundation (CANF) and other terrorist groups based in the United
                   States. The extradition application centers on the fact that he collaborated in
                   the organization of the Panama conspiracy in November 2000, and that Cuba
                   possesses evidence pertaining to his direct participation in the planning and
                   financing of terrorist actions against the island.

                   “For this reason we have the utmost confidence that you, with full
                   understanding of the case and acting in accordance with your principles of
                   equity and justice, will grant these four Cuban patriots their freedom,” the
                   letter concludes in a rather curious manner, suggesting that the “ideals” of
                   those four imprisoned murderers are also those of the President.

                   THE SAME IDEALS?

                   “They are the same ideals for which you have fought throughout your political
                   career, as well as in your role as a high court judge,” write the terrorists. Mrs.
                   Moscoso’s reaction (if there has been one) is unknown.

                   The letter is signed by Abel Pérez, Alberto de Calvo, Luis Aguirre, Noel
                   Aparicio, José Platas, José Luis Fernández, René Cruz Cruz, Sergio Díaz, Hugo
                   J. Byrne - all of them linked to groups or factions that, in one way or another,
                   support the use of terrorism.

                   To give just one example, Cruz Cruz and his buddy Eusebio de Jesús Peñalver
                   - another of Posada’s friends, in whose offices the frustrated plot against Hugo
                   Chávez was planned - were members of counterrevolutionary gangs
                   organized, armed and financed by the CIA. Both were subsequently active
                   members with positions of responsibility in terrorist organizations engaging in
                   anti-Cuba attacks from the United States. Leader of the United Liberation
                   Commandos, Cruz Cruz was arrested by the FBI in possession of an entire
                   arsenal. Of course, he was subsequently acquitted.

                   René Cruz Cruz is also a buddy of Nelsy Ignacio Castro Matos, an active
                   member of various terrorist organizations, the mastermind behind countless
                   attacks of this nature on Cuban targets and Luis Posada Carriles’ crony since
                   they worked together for the Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention
                   Services (DISIP) in Venezuela during the 1970s.

                   All of these members of the terrorist fauna who maneuver with total impunity
                   on U.S. territory, together with other Cuban terrorists located in there, are
                   funding the trial costs and working to create the conditions so that Luis Posada
                   Carriles and his accomplices will eventually escape justice, as the former
                   already did from Venezuela after the Barbados passenger liner sabotage.

                   POSADA’S “FAN CLUB”

                   The membership list for the small, but highly dangerous, “fan club” of Posada
                   and his sidekicks would not be complete without mentioning Ernesto Díaz, an
                   Alpha 66 mercenary, and José Ramón “Raymond” Molina, a known CIA
                   operative. Nor should we omit Mario Chanes de Armas, arrested when he
                   conspired to assassinate the Cuban president and exposed for his participation
                   in a plan to attack Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. He is also a friend of
                   George W. Bush, who received him in the White House as a “representative of
                   the exile community”.

                   At Posada’s last court appearance in Panama, the Miami mafia’s “delegation”
                   was dominated by Reinol Rodríguez, an imposing man with a large mustache
                   who led the terrorist United Revolutionary Organizations Coordinate (CORU)
                   in Puerto Rico and who, 25 years ago, was involved in the murder of Carlos
                   Muñiz Varela on April 28. Varela was a young Cuban émigré in favor of
                   developing friendly relations with the island.

                   Another recently-declassified FBI document directly links Rodríguez to a plot
                   to assassinate another progressive activist, this time from Puerto Rico¼But
                   we take this aspect up - and much more besides - at a more opportune
                   moment.

                   INDECENT MANEUVERS

                   The maneuvers by the Cuban-American mafia forces would seem indecent
                   when the integrity of Judge Paniza and DA Arquímedes Sáez has been
                   acknowledged by everyone in the Republic in respect of this cause célèbre that
                   will mark the annals of Panamanian justice forever. A signatory of various
                   international agreements on terrorism, it is Panama’s responsibility to ensure
                   that criminals such as these do not have another opportunity to take up their
                   reign of terror, as they have done for the last 40 years and more.

                   At the end of the preliminary hearing in September, defense lawyer Rogelio
                   Cruz embarked upon his threats by rudely insulting both the judge and the
                   DA’s office with a series of unjustified interventions.

                   The former general attorney’s summing stooped as low as to refer to the
                   Republic’s case as “garbage,” and he threatened the judge with lodging a
                   “human rights” complaint before various international organizations!

                   Given the collapse of the defense at the September hearing and the prospect of
                   a trial in which Posada and his mercenary sidekicks will have to face the facts
                   that they have tried to conceal, this quartet of murderous buddies are seeking
                   another way out.

                   The attacks on Judge Paniza, and through him his person on Panamanian
                   justice itself, illustrate with just what methods the Cuban-American terrorists
                   are hoping to save their “heroes.”