Cuban government says it has enough evidence to try suspects

CNN October 30, 1998 Cuban government says it has enough evidence to try suspects

                  MEXICO CITY (AP) -- The Cuban government said Thursday that there is
                  enough evidence to try a Salvadoran man who confessed to a hotel bombing
                  spree last year and four others accused of plotting terrorist acts.

                  The Communist Party daily Granma said the five suspects belong to a
                  Central America-based network directed and funded by the Cuban
                  American National Foundation based in Miami.

                  Foundation spokeswoman Ninoska Perez denied the report, calling it "more
                  of the same badly staged circus" by Cuba. The foundation has always denied
                  using violence in its campaign against President Fidel Castro.

                  The Granma article, summarized by the Cuban government's Prensa Latina
                  news service and monitored in Mexico, said there was enough evidence to
                  try the five for terrorism "immediately" under Cuban law.

                  No trial date was set. "They are mercenaries who would charge between
                  $1,000 and $4,500 for each bomb they exploded in Cuba," the article
                  alleged.

                  The other suspects were identified as Otto Rene Rodriguez Llerena of El
                  Salvador and Guatemalans Nader Kamal Musalam Bakarat, Maria Elena
                  Gonzalez Meza and her husband, Jazid Ivan Fernandez Mendoza.

Salvadoran President Armando Calderon Sol said Wednesday that Cuba
has the right to try Rodriguez Llerena, but urged a fair trial.

                  "If there are actions or criminal deeds committed by Salvadorans abroad,
                  any country has the right to judge them for the crime committed," Calderon
                  Sol said.

                  Granma said Rodriguez Llerena was arrested at Havana's international
                  airport on June 10 with a package of plastic explosives and other items "to
                  undertake terrorist activities."

Gonzalez and Kamal Musalam were arrested on March 4, allegedly after
trying to place explosives in a public area, it said.

                  Gonzalez' husband, Fernandez, was detained March 20 when he went to
                  Cuba to try to get his wife out of the country and allegedly admitted to
                  helping hide explosive materials that the others brought into Cuba.

An Italian man was killed in one of the bombings blamed last year on Cruz
Leon. Seven people were wounded.

                  Granma said the suspects told Cuban officials that their activities were
                  financed by the foundation and organized by Luis Posadas Carriles, a Cuban
                  exile accused by Cuban authorities of responsibility for the 1976 bombing of
                  a Cubana airliner that killed 73 people.

Posada Carriles was twice acquitted of that action, but spent nine years in a
Venezuelan prison before escaping in 1985.