By JUAN O. TAMAYO
Herald Staff Writer

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Three Cuban exiles accused of plotting to kill Fidel
Castro have moved to quash a co-defendant's purported confession and have
vowed to dredge up past CIA attempts to assassinate the Cuban leader if their
request is denied.

Suppressing the statement by Angel Manuel Alfonso would significantly weaken
the prosecution case in the first U.S. trial on a charge of conspiracy to
assassinate Castro, defense lawyers said.

``Without those statements it is a weak case, purely circumstantial, said
Francisco Acevedo, attorney for Angel Hernandez Rojo, one of seven exiles
charged with planning to kill Castro when he visited Venezuela in 1997.

U.S. prosecutor Miguel Pereira filed a reply May 6 arguing against quashing the
statement or separating Alfonso's trial. U.S. Judge Hector M. Laffitte is expected
to rule on the motions soon.

A trial is set to begin Nov. 12 for the seven exiles and a Miami company on
charges of conspiracy to murder a foreign government leader and failing to declare
two .50-caliber sniper rifles.

Hernandez, Alfonso, Juan Bautista Marquez and Francisco Cordova were arrested
aboard the yacht Esperanza in 1997 after the Coast Guard boarded it off Puerto
Rico and found the rifles hidden under a stair.

Spontaneous confession

Alfonso, a former New Jersey factory manager, blurted out during the arrests that
the guns were his, that he was on his way to kill Castro in Venezuela and that the
others aboard knew nothing about it, according to court documents.

Three were charged later: Jose Antonio Rodriguez, Alfredo Domingo Otero and
Jose Antonio Llama, all from the Miami area. Llama is a businessman and a
director of the Cuban American National Foundation.

Llama was the last owner of record of one of the sniper rifles and president of
Nautical Sports, the Miami firm that owned the Esperanza, prosecution
documents showed.

Motions filed by Otero, Cordova and Rodriguez last month sought to suppress
Alfonso's statement or give him a separate trial, which probably would bar his
comments from their own trial.

Alfonso had not yet been read his full Miranda rights when he began blurting out
his ``confession, they argued, and his subsequent request for a lawyer should
have stopped any further talks with law enforcement agents.

But the motions also argue that Alfonso lied when he confessed to the murder
plot, believing that would protect him from prosecution on the weapons charge
because the CIA has shielded previous would-be Castro assassins.

A threat to reveal secrets

If Alfonso's statement is admitted in the trial, the defendants would be compelled
``to introduce evidence concerning the history of past [U.S.] assassination
attempts against Castro, one motion said. ``We respectfully submit that the court
should avoid opening that Pandora's box.

The wording amounted to a thinly veiled threat that the defendants, most of them
veterans of the CIA campaigns against Castro in the 1960s, could turn their trial
into an embarrassing show for Washington.

``Faced with the prospects of having the defendants' trial transformed into a battle
about the CIA's past alleged conduct, this court may choose to suppress all of
Alfonso's statements, the motion added.

Pereira's reply said Alfonso's confession was legitimate and that the history of
CIA attempts on Castro is already public. But prosecution pressures on at least
one defendant to turn state's evidence showed Pereira is still trying to strengthen
his case.

Juan Bautista Marquez, 62, was arrested in Miami in January, along with a son
and stepson, on charges of possessing 365 kilos of cocaine, conspiracy to import
2,000 kilos and money laundering.

Marquez, who lives in Miami but has businesses in Panama and the Mexican
resort of Cancun, has declined prosecution offers of leniency for his sons if he
cooperates on the Castro case, Miami-based exiles close to the case said.

Defense lawyers say they are confident the Cuban exiles will be cleared of the
murder conspiracy charges, punishable by life in prison, and face only minor
penalties on the weapons charges.