Correspondents say that Panama will not extradite to Cuba notorious international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles
STATEMENT BY THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF CUBA
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has read with concern various press releases from Panama dated 13 March 2001 and the information published today, 14 March, by the Panamanian media about the statements attributed to Mrs. Mireya Moscoso, President of the Republic of Panama, at a press conference for foreign correspondents based in that country.
It is indicated that the President of Panama told the correspondents that her country would not extradite to Cuba notorious international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, arrested in Panama along with three accomplices after attempting to assassinate Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, President of the Republic of Cuba, during the 10th Ibero-American Summit held last November, following instructions from the Miami-based annexation-minded mafia.
According to the media, President Moscoso stated that the reason for not accepting the extradition requested was that the crimes the terrorist was charged with were punishable in Cuba by the death penalty.
The Government of the Republic of Cuba, in full conformity with the Panamanian legislation – particularly the Legal Code of the Republic of Panama – and within the legal terms established requested the extradition of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles along with terrorists Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, Pedro Remón and Guillermo Novo Sampol. With this in view, the Cuban Government not only submitted the relevant extradition files, but also agreed to comply with the rest of the demands put forth by the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Panama. Among these requirements, the Cuban legal authorities formally agreed that should the four terrorists be extradited to Cuba, they would not be sentenced to the death penalty, thus abiding by the provisions of the Legal Code of the Republic of Panama.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs recalls that Luis Posada Carriles was the mastermind behind the mid-air destruction of a Cubana Airlines plane in 1976 off the coast of Barbados, the terrorist bombing attempts on Cuban hotels in 1977 and countless crimes against our country. His three accomplices, also arrested in Panama, are directly responsible not only for terrorist actions committed against Cuba and Cuban and other countries’ facilities, but also for the death of Cuban nationals like Félix García Rodríguez – a Cuban diplomat assassinated at Cuba’s Permanent Mission to the UN – and Artañán Díaz Díaz – a Cuban fishing technician assassinated in Mexico.
In the last few weeks, the Cuban Embassy in Panama has been compelled to warn the Panamanian authorities against the security measures that must be adopted with the detained terrorists in that country. Two of them – Luis Posada Carriles and Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo – have escaped from prisons in Venezuela and Mexico, respectively, where they were confined because of their criminal activities.
It has also been known that the spokespersons of the Miami-based Cuban-American mafia – and representatives of the Cuban-American National Foundation in particular – have travelled to Panama recently and attempted to pressurize its authorities into releasing the four terrorists who throughout the years have carried out activities against Cuba, as sponsored and instructed by the dishonest anti-Cuban organizations based in the territory of the United States.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expects that the comments attributed by the international media to the President of Panama will not indicate the official position to be adopted by the Government of the Republic of Panama, specifically because Cuba has strictly complied with all the requirements established under the Panamanian legislation for extradition cases and because the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Panama – the only entity empowered under the Panamanian law to accept or reject the extradition requests – has not come forward with a statement yet.
Havana, 14 March 2001
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