SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- (AP) -- A judge denied a request by six Cuban
 Americans accused of plotting to kill Fidel Castro to be tried separately from a
 seventh man who allegedly confessed.

 The six argued that incriminating statements by defendant Angel Alfonso were
 prejudicial. But U.S. District Judge Hector M. Lafitte ruled Wednesday he could
 instruct jurors not to use certain statements against Alfonso's co-defendants.

 Alfonso allegedly made eight incriminating statements, but the judge ruled
 prosecutors could use only one as evidence against all the defendants. That
 statement was that he would continue trying to kill Castro even if he went to
 prison.

 Prosecutors say Alfonso told the U.S. Coast Guard he was on his way to kill
 Castro when he and three other men were stopped on a boat off Puerto Rico on
 Oct. 26, 1997. Castro was attending a conference on Venezuela's Margarita
 Island.

 The Coast Guard found two .50-caliber assault rifles, ammunition, night vision
 goggles and high-powered gun sights on the boat.

 Three other Cuban exiles in Miami were later charged in the case -- the first in
 which the United States has charged someone with trying to assassinate the
 communist leader.

 Trial is set for November.

 The men arrested on the boat were Francisco Cordova, 50, a commercial
 fisherman from Marathon, Fla.; Miami businessmen Angel Hernandez Rojo, 64;
 Angel Manuel Alfonso, 57, of Union City, N.J., a textile company manager; and
 Juan Bautista Marquez, 61.

 Marquez was later arrested on an unrelated seven-count indictment accusing him
 of importing 803 pounds of cocaine into the United States.

 Also charged in the alleged Castro plot were Jose Antonio Llama, a director of the
 Cuban American National Foundation; Miami lumber dealer Jose Rodriguez, 61,
 and Alfredo Otero, 62, also of Miami.