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Panama Pardons Four Anti-Castro Figures NewsMax.com WiresPANAMA CITY, Panama – Panama's president on Thursday pardoned four Cuban emigres accused of trying to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro despite Havana's threat to cut diplomatic ties over such a move. Announcing the pardons just days before she was to leave office, President Mireya Moscoso said she wanted to prevent a future government from extraditing the four when they finish their terms. She pardoned Luis Posada Carriles, Gaspar Jimenez, Guillermo Novo and Pedro Remon. Story Continues Below "We know that if they stay, they would face the possibility of being extradited to Venezuela or Cuba where I am sure they would have been killed," she said at a news conference. Posada, a 76-year-old former CIA operative, faces criminal charges in Venezuela as well as Cuba. On Sunday, Cuba threatened to immediately break off relations with Panama if Moscoso pardoned the four exiles. Expressing anger at the tone of the Cuban complaints, Moscoso withdrew her country's ambassador from the island this week and ordered the Cuban ambassador here to leave. Cuba's state-run television announced Thursday that a special program about Posada would air later, but there was no immediate reaction to the pardons. Castro had once called Posada "the worst terrorist in the hemisphere." The diplomatic clash erupted just days before Moscoso was to hand over the presidency on Sept. 1 to Martin Torrijos. Panama and Cuba have had relatively friendly relations since restoring ties in the early 1970s. The incoming president is son of populist military strongman Omar Torrijos, who had friendly relations with Castro. Cuba also has used Panama's Colon free zone as a transit point to skirt the U.S. economic embargo of the island. The four exiles were taken to the city's airport earlier, Moscoso said, but she did not reveal where they were going. Cuban officials said Posada led the plan to kill Castro at a summit here in November 2000. Panamanian courts sentenced Posada and Jimenez to eight years for endangering public safety and falsifying documents, and Novo and Remon got seven years for endangering public safety. Cuba had protested the sentences, saying they were not tough enough. But Panamanian courts ruled there was not enough evidence to accuse the men of attempted murder or other serious charges such as possession of explosives, which were found near Panama City's airport on the day the men were arrested. The defendants maintained they were in Panama to help a Cuban general who supposedly had planned to seek political asylum.
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