A Department of Homeland Security lawyer Thursday testified at Luis Posada Carriles' trial to virtually each and every one of the alleged lies that are behind the 11 charges facing the anti-Castro militant.
The trial also turned up a brief reference to a little-known claim that Posada had confessed to an FBI agent in 2000 that he plotted to kill Fidel Castro in Panama.
Posada stands accused of lying under oath about how he entered the United States; when he denied that he had confessed to a string of Havana bombings; and when he denied having a Guatemalan passport. He has denied all the charges.
The prosecution's first witness, DHS attorney Gina Garrett-Jackson, spent Thursday testifying on her interviews of Posada in August 2005, soon after he arrived and was detained in Miami. He was requesting asylum, and fighting a deportation proceeding.
Reading from transcripts of their three sessions, she told the court that Posada claimed under oath to have entered the United States through the border with Mexico. Prosecutors say he arrived in Miami aboard a ship owned by Cuban exiles.
The transcripts also showed Posada denied he ``solicited'' or ``arranged'' for someone to set off the Havana bombings. ``I am saying that is not true,'' he told the DHS lawyer.
Posada also said he had never met Ernesto Cruz León, the young Salvadoran who set off some of the bombs, including one that killed an Italian tourist, according to the transcripts.
Asked if he had admitted to journalist Ann Louise Bardach during their interview in 1998 that Cruz León worked for him, Posada replied, ``That needs an explanation.'' Asked if he had arranged for anyone else to send Cruz León to Cuba, he replied with a flat, ``No.''
To read the complete article, visit www.miamiherald.com.
Read more:
.jpg)
Comments