BY JUAN O. TAMAYO

 SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- With the chilling words, ``conspired to kill, with malice
 aforethought, Fidel Castro, a judge on Friday opened the first U.S. trial involving
 charges of trying to assassinate the Cuban president.

 Last-minute talks on the possibility of a plea bargain failed. An attorney said
 prosecutors and lawyers for the six Cuban exile defendants remained too far
 apart, but contacts continue.

 Judge Hector Lafitte separated the case of a seventh defendant, Juan B.
 Marquez, 61, who is suffering from cancer. He is jailed in Miami, awaiting trial on
 unrelated drug-smuggling and money-laundering charges.

 In a soft tone that belied the magnitude of the case, Lafitte then read the
 indictment charging that the other six, ``beginning on or about Feb. 14, 1995,
 conspired to kill, with malice aforethought, Fidel Castro.

 He later empaneled a jury of eight women and four men, with two male alternates,
 for the first U.S. case in which anyone is charged with trying to kill Castro, a
 target of multiple CIA assassination attempts in the 1960s.

 Charged are South Floridians Jose Antonio Llama -- a member of the board of
 directors of the Cuban American National Foundation -- Angel Hernandez,
 Francisco Cordova, Jose Rodriguez-Sosa and Alfredo Otero, and New Jersey
 resident Angel Alfonso.

 They are accused of planning to shoot down Castro's airplane when he visited the
 Venezuelan island of Margarita in 1997, just days after the Coast Guard
 intercepted four defendants on a yacht off Puerto Rico.

 Lafitte scheduled opening arguments for Monday and told the jurors to prepare for
 a two-week case, although prosecutors and defense lawyers said they will more
 likely take three or four weeks.

 Among the jurors rejected were three who said they had traveled to Cuba and a
 woman of Cuban descent who blurted out ``My father, when asked if any member
 of her family advocated the violent overthrow of Castro.

 The 14 jurors selected included four in their 20s, four middle-aged and four elderly.

 ``A good panel, one that seems capable of making an independent judgment,
 defense attorney Jose Pagan said.

 Attorneys said the defense lawyers contacted prosecutor Miguel Pereira this
 week to explore a possible plea bargain but received only what one called ``an
 insistence on long prison terms for all.

 The six defendants face life in prison if convicted on the conspiracy charge.
 Alfonso, Cordova, Hernandez and Marquez also face charges involving the
 discovery of two high-powered rifles hidden in the 46-foot yacht Esperanza.

 Alfonso said during his arrest that the guns were his and that he was planning to
 shoot at Castro's airplane as it landed on Margarita, but insisted that the other
 exiles aboard the yacht were not aware of his mission.