Judge José Ho Justiniani, who got the case after defense lawyers procured another judge’s removal for alleged incompetence, has handed out prison sentences to a group of anti-Castro activists who were arrested in Panama during a November 2000 Ibero-American summit, then abruptly submitted his resignation.
The defendants, members of the extreme fringe of the Miami-based Cuban exile movement, were originally accused of plotting to set off a series of explosions during an appearance by Fidel Castro at the University of Panama. Had such a plan been carried out with the explosives that were introduced into the evidence, not only Castro but also many who came to see him would have been blown to bits. Thus a number of labor unions, student groups and the Kuna General Congress, who were Castro’s hosts for the event, filed private charges and prosecuted the case far more vigorously than the Public Ministry did.
The most severe charges against Luis Posada Carriles, Gaspar Jiménez, Guillermo Novo, Pedro Remón, César Matamoros and José Manuel Hurtado, that they conspired to murder Castro and a number of other people, were thrown out when a key part of the bomb-making material, blasting caps, were found missing from the evidence. But the accused maintained that such explosives and paraphernalia that were presented as evidence were planted by Cuban government agents, whom they claimed lured them to Panama to frame them on false charges. According to the defendants and their supporters, they were told that one of Fidel’s top bodyguards wished to defect during the summit and they came to Panama to help him do so. The one defendant under age 50, 37-year-old Panamanian taxi driver Hurtado, steadfastly maintained that he was just hired to drive the other defendants around and knew nothing of any terrorist plots or political intrigues.
However, the men were convicted of attacking national security and, except for Hurtado, of falsification of public documents arising from their entry into Panama using fake identification.
Hurtado will be out of prison shortly. He was given a four-year prison term and, like the others, was given credit for time already served awaiting trial. Thus he has already served enough of his sentence to be released on good behavior, which is expected.
Posada Carriles, who is 76, got eight years, as did 69-year-old Jiménez. Novo (65), Remón (50) and Matamoros (67) were all given seven-year prison terms.
The verdicts and sentences brought protests and appeals from all sides. Defense attorneys on the one side and the private prosecutors for Castro’s hosts on the alleged that the ruling was unfair and politically motivated and said that they would appeal. The Cuban ambassador here said that the convictions demonstrated the terrorist mission of the anti-Castro activists, but his superiors in Havana issued a statement that “the sentences do not match the gravity of the crimes they committed in the Republic of Panama." Meanwhile in Miami, the Cuban exile movement called upon Mireya Moscoso to pardon the activists and criticized Panama for what they said was too cozy a relationship with the dictatorship in Cuba.
Shortly after the ruling, Ho Justiniani submitted his resignation as an alternate judge to his superiors on the Supreme Court. The acting magistrate cited a heavy caseload at his usual job as a judicial clerk, but within legal circles there is a lot of talk about conflicting political pressures that had been brought to bear in order to influence his decision.
The case has taken on even more international notoriety because Luis Posada Carriles is wanted by Cuban and Venezuelan authorities for his alleged role as the mastermind of a 1970s Cubana airliner bombing in which 73 people killed. Panama declined to extradite Posada Carriles to Cuba, on the grounds that he would face the death penalty there.
At the trial's conclusion Venezuela submitted an extradition request, to which Panamanian authorities have not yet responded. However, it is not expected that Posada Carriles will be sent to Caracas, from whence he escaped from prison while awaiting a retrial after an acquittal was voided due to a prosecution appeal. There is no capital punishment in Venezuela, but there is concern that authorities there would hand him over to the Cuban government.
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Posada Carriles gets eight years
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Scenes from the big Torrijos rally
Gangs: the lethal urge to belong
Bleming closes the circle
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Supreme Court blocks presidential secret fund investigation
