Cuban exile militant, two allies are indicted

Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles and two supporters were indicted in Texas,

ensuring that Posada will remain in detention for the foreseeable future.

By Alfonso Chardy, Jay Weaver, and Oscar Corral

LINK

Legendary Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles was charged criminally for the first time in the United States on Thursday, when a federal grand jury in Texas accused him of lying about how he sneaked into the country in 2005.

Also charged Thursday were Posada's chief exile benefactor, Santiago Alvarez, and another supporter -- Osvaldo Mitat -- after they refused to testify before the same grand jury. Both are now serving prison sentences on a weapons case that surfaced just months after Posada was detained in Miami-Dade County.

Posada has long maintained that he came into the United States by crossing the Mexican border with the assistance of a migrant smuggler, not by sea as prosecutors now allege.

The prosecution of the 78-year-old former CIA operative, a hero to some in Miami's exile community and a terrorist to others, likely ensures that he will not be released anytime soon. Posada's freedom loomed closer after a federal judge in El Paso set a Feb. 1 deadline for the U.S. government to justify the militant's continued custody by immigration authorities.

''This is an act of desperation on the part of the U.S. government to maintain Luis detained,'' said Eduardo Soto, Posada's immigration lawyer. ``My client has always represented to me that he entered via the border by land. . . . I stand by what my client has always represented to me.''

Soto said he planned to ask that Posada be freed on bond.

By charging Posada with defrauding the government, the Justice Department signaled its willingness to target a man who has been in investigators' cross hairs since 1997, when he was first suspected of masterminding a series of tourist site bombings in Cuba. A grand jury in New Jersey is looking at evidence gathered anew by the FBI, which is focusing on money wire transfers and a reporter's tape in which Posada allegedly confesses to plotting the bombings.

Thursday's indictment is built on a statement given to the FBI by an informant who said that Posada entered the country on a shrimping boat called Santrina manned by Alvarez, Mitat and others, including the informant himself: Gilberto Abascal. He said the crew on the Santrina picked up Posada on the Mexican island of Isla Mujeres and transported him to the United States.

Abascal did not testify before the El Paso grand jury, but his FBI statement was presented to the jurors. Abascal declined to comment on the indictment, citing ''an order of silence from the judge,'' but insisted that he told the truth to investigators.

''I have always told the truth and have not lied about anything,'' Abascal said by telephone. ``Even if they insult me or kill me, I'll continue telling the truth.''

Abascal added that he was ''waiting for the day'' to testify. ''If they call me, I'll go, but they haven't called me,'' he said.

Except for Abascal, all the men linked to the Santrina voyage have been indicted on contempt of court charges, including Alvarez and Mitat, who appeared before the grand jury

Thursday. Their attorneys declined to comment.

The Santrina captain, José ''Pepín'' Pujol, told The Miami Herald Thursday: ``If they indicted him, they must know what they are doing.''

He declined to say what he told the grand jury, but added: ``We answered honestly and truthfully the questions that were asked of us. But in many questions, we pleaded the Fifth . . Time will tell how this country treats its allies.''

The five men on the boat, including Abascal, first told The Miami Herald in December 2005 that they did not bring Posada aboard the boat to the United States. Some said they made the trip to Isla Mujeres to test the boat, which had been refurbished.

But Abascal later changed his story, noting in April 2006 that Posada indeed had been aboard the Santrina.

The first count charges Posada with fraud, alleging he lied in September 2005 on his citizenship application and in April 2006 during his naturalization interview.

He is also charged with six additional counts of making false statements about his entry into the United Sates. Among Posada's alleged lies: He traveled from Honduras to Belize and entered the United States near Brownsville, Texas, with the assistance of ''an unidentified alien smuggler,'' and he never saw the Santrina or its crew while traveling from Mexico to the United States.

The indictment also alleges that Posada lied when he asserted that he never had any type of Guatemalan papers when he possessed a forged passport in the name of Manuel Enrique Castillo López.

Posada lived in Guatemala and was severely wounded in an assassination attempt there in 1990. He later traveled through Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama.

While traveling between Guatemala and El Salvador, Posada was suspected of securing money from New Jersey supporters, as well as explosive materials and recruits, to conduct the bombing campaign in Cuba, according to an FBI agent's affidavit.

One of the bombs killed an Italian tourist while sitting at a hotel lobby in Havana.

In taped interviews, Posada later told writer Ann Louise Bardach, then under contract with The New York Times, that he was responsible for the attacks. But in testimony in immigration court last year Posada recanted, saying his English was poor and he did not express himself accurately.

The New Jersey grand jury has issued a subpoena for Bardach's tape, which she is fighting.

Posada's travels took him to Panama, where he was convicted in April 2004 with three others in connection with an alleged plot to kill Fidel Castro. The men were pardoned four months later. Posada went to Honduras and turned up in Miami in 2005.

Posada has been in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since he was detained in Miami-Dade on May 17, 2005. He had been held at an immigration facility in El Paso from which he was removed Thursday. His lawyer said Posada likely was transferred to a federal detention center in Texas.

Posada is also wanted in Venezuela for his alleged role in the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976 that killed 73 people. Venezuela asked for his extradition. The U.S. government has not acted on that request.

Link