Bomber Names Ex-CIA Operative in Cuba Bombings

By AP

Salvadoran Man Says He Received Explosives and $2K in Cash from U.S. Agent to Carry Out 1997 Hotel Bombing.

February 10, 2011 "Castro Slams U.S. Release of Ex-CIA Agent" - -(CBS News)

HAVANA — A Salvadoran man jailed in Cuba in connection with a string of 1990s hotel bombings says he told a U.S. prosecutor that he got explosives and money directly from a former CIA operative now on trial in Texas, and that he is willing to testify against him.

Otto Rene Rodriguez told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Tuesday that he received powerful C-4 explosives and $2,000 in cash directly from Luis Posada Carriles to carry out an Aug. 3, 1997, bombing at Havana's Melia Cohiba hotel. He was captured trying to enter the country on a subsequent trip with 1.5 kilos (3.3 pounds) of C-4 that Posada had given him, he said....

Posada, 82, is not on trial directly for the bombing campaign — but rather for allegedly lying about his involvement to federal authorities during immigration hearings after he sneaked into the U.S. in March 2005.

Cuba's decision to make Rodriguez and another confessed bomber, Ernesto Cruz Leon, available for the AP interview was part of an effort to show its willingness to help in the U.S. case against the Cuba-born Posada, who is considered Public Enemy No. 1 on his native island....

Rodriguez's story could be an important piece of the case against Posada, though he said that up until now he has not been asked to testify. He said he could not recall the name of the U.S. prosecutor who visited him in jail along with four FBI agents in late 2009 or early 2010.

Posada was on the CIA payroll from the early 1960s until 1976.

He participated indirectly in the Bay of Pigs invasion and later moved to Venezuela, where he served as head of that country's intelligence service. He was arrested for planning the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. A military court dismissed the charges, then Posada escaped from prison before a civilian trial against him was completed.

In the 1980s, he helped Washington provide aid to the Contra rebels fighting Nicaragua's leftist government. In 2000, he was arrested in Panama in connection with a plot to kill Fidel Castro during a summit there. He was pardoned in 2004 and turned up in the U.S. the following March, seeking American citizenship and prompting the immigration hearings that led to the current charges against him.

Cuba has complained bitterly that Posada has never been brought to justice for the bombings and other terrorist acts, and that even now the most serious sanction he could face on the charge of lying to immigration officials is likely to be well under 10 years in jail....

ALSO -

There are five Cuban citizens who infiltrated the Cuban exile terrorists organizations in Miami, who are now in jail, For LIFE! These people infiltrated the organizations to protect Cuba from the kind of operations that Posada Carriles carried out and directed for a lifetime. After 9/11, when the US Govt asked the world for information about terrorist organizations, the Cuban govt shared the information it had of the Miami Cuban terrorist groups with the US Govt, and the US government response was to jail the five Cuban agents and charge them with espionage!

For more information, see "Cuban 5" under Links to Recommended Websites on this blog.