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September 14, 2001

Lawsuit against terrorist Posada Carriles accepted

PANAMA.- A lawsuit filed in August by Panamanian trade unions against Luis Posada Carriles and three other Cuba-born terrorists was accepted by the First Prosecutor’s Office of that country. The four terrorists had planned to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro during the most recent Ibero-American Summit, at a university facility.

The National Confederation of Independent Trade Union Unity (CONUSI) and the National Union of Construction and Similar Workers (SUNTRACS) said at a press conference that the Panamanian legal authority will allow those unions to represent their interests in the trial against Posada Carriles and his accomplices.

The terrorist commando has been held in a Panamanian jail since last November, charged with planning the assassination attempt on the Cuban president during a rally at the University of Panama attended by more than 2,000 persons, while the latter was visiting that country to attend the 10th Ibero-American Summit.

In an exclusive interview with Prensa Latina, Rafael Rodr�guez, the lawyer representing CONUSI and SUNTRACS in their lawsuit, termed the decision of the prosecutor’s office as "very positive" because it allows those unions, whose members were present at the rally with the Cuban leader, to take part in the trial.

Rodr�guez, also a University of Panama professor, said that now the unions would be heard and could participate in all the activities of the trial.

"If they ask for precautionary measures, we can state our opinion, and if they pretend to be sick, we’ll provide them with doctors to demonstrate that they aren’t sick at all. If they ask for special consideration, we’re going to say that in Panamanian jails there are sick people of all kinds living in terrible conditions, unlike the prison paradise they’re living in."

According to Rodr�guez, the accused acted as part of a "criminal enterprise" that could have caused "a national and international catastrophe," given that they had planned to blow up the university filled with students, professionals, workers and others.

"Their lawyers aren’t going to be able to do as they please; they are going to be faced with other lawyers, and we’re going to prove that they are defending some gentlemen who were planning to sow mourning, terror and bloodshed for the Panamanian people."

Meanwhile, trade union leader Gabriel Castillo noted that there is evidence that the terrorist group was planning to utilize war materiel like C-4 explosives for their attack on the security of Panamanians and foreigners present at the rally.

Among other attacks on the island, organized and financed in U.S. territory, Posada Carriles is responsible for the mid-flight explosion of a Cubana airliner in 1976, causing the deaths of all 73 people on board. The Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), the mainstay of the ultra-right anti-Cuban elements in Miami, helped him escape from a Venezuelan jail after being charged with that crime.

Five Cubans who tried to obtain information by infiltrating counterrevolutionary organizations in Miami, with the objective of combating terrorism planned against the island, remain in a Florida prison, accused by U.S. authorities of espionage.

 

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