ALLEGED TERRORIST ADMITTED BOMBINGS

By Louie Gilot

Alleged Terrorist Reportedly Admitted Hotel, Cafe Bombings

Luis Posada Carriles was forced to face his past in an El Paso courtroom Tuesday, when government lawyers brought up his alleged use of aliases and his alleged participation in a string of hotel bombings in Cuba in 1997 and in a plot to kill Fidel Castro in Panama in 2000.

Posada, a former CIA operative and anti-Castro activist, answered the accusations by invoking the Fifth Amendment, saying he didn't remember or blaming his poor English.

The 77-year-old Cuba native and Venezuelan citizen is asking for asylum in the United States. The government is seeking his deportation because of what prosecutor Gina Garrett-Jackson called his "criminal past."

One of the most damning pieces of evidence Tuesday was a 1998 interview Posada gave to the New York Times, in which he admitted some involvement in a series of bombings of hotels and restaurants in Cuba that killed at least one Italian tourist. Tuesday, Posada dismissed the interview that had been conducted mostly in English.

"Because of my language difficulties, there has been confusion in my interviews," Posada said in Spanish through a translator.

Ann Louise Bardach, the writer who interviewed him for the New York Times, was in the audience Tuesday and said Posada worked in Ohio in his youth and was a translator for the U.S. Army.

"He spoke very good English, including slang," she said.

The government also pointed out that Posada swore in his petition for asylum that he had never used a name other than his own, while he owned Panamanian and Salvadoran passports under different names. Among his aliases were Franco Rodriguez Mena, Jose Rivas Lopez, Bambi, Lugo, Solo and Ramon Medina.

Posada lost patience only once, when answering a question about where he stayed in Panama during the plot against Castro, in which he denied participating.

"I was in a hotel. If I am going to kill Fidel Castro, I am not going to be in a hotel," he burst out, then apologized.

Tuesday morning, Joaquin Chaffardet, a Venezuelan lawyer, told the court that if Posada were returned to Venezuela, he would be tortured in prison and possibly sent to Cuba.

lgilot@elpasotimes.com

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