Groups call for arrests in alleged Cuba plot

Posted on Thursday, 05.29.14

Groups call for arrests in alleged Cuba plot
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
JTAMAYO@ELNUEVOHERALD.COM

Two pro-Havana groups have called for the prosecution of Miami exiles
who the Cuban government has alleged were behind a plot by four other
men, arrested in Cuba last month, to attack military installations on
the island.

The National Committee to Free the Cuban Five and Act Now to Stop War
and End Racism (ANSWER) said it also asked the CIA, FBI and State
Department for massive amounts of information on militant exiles and
terror attacks on Cuba.

"We believe the U.S. government has information" on the four men
arrested in Cuba, ANSWER executive director Brian Becker said at a news
conference Thursday in Miami.

A Cuban Interior Ministry statement earlier this month said Miami
residents Raibel Pacheco Santos, Obdulio Rodríguez González, Félix
Monzón Álvarez and José Ortega Amador were arrested April 26 in Cuba.

The statement added that the four confessed their plot was "organized
under the direction" of Miami exiles Santiago Álvarez Fernández, Osvaldo
Mitat and Manuel Alzugaray, all linked to Luis Posada Carriles. But it
gave no other details.

Posada, 86, is a Miami exile wanted by Havana for the 1976 bombing of a
Cuban airliner that killed 73 passengers and crew members.

Posada, Álvarez, Mitat and Alzugaray should be arrested and prosecuted,
said Gloria La Riva, director of the National Committee to Free the
Cuban Five, which seeks the release of three Havana spies serving long
sentences in U.S. prisons.

La Riva said the intelligence agents — two finished their sentences and
returned to Cuba — were spying on radical exiles to avert terror attacks
on the island. Evidence at their trial showed the "Wasp Network" also
monitored U.S. military bases.

The nine-page requests to the CIA, FBI and State Department under the
Freedom of Information Act seek all information about the eight men in
the alleged April case and about 13 other well-known exiles — a virtual
who's who of Miami militants.

Also requested was any and all information held by the U.S. government
on a string of court cases involving Posada, Alvarez and others, plus
several organizations, including Alzugaray's Miami Medical Mission and
the Cuban American National Foundation.

"We believe these documents will show the U.S. government knows of,
allows and carries out" terrorist activities against Cuba going back to
the early 1960s, Becker said at the news conference.

Becker also noted that recent weeks have seen a campaign urging
President Barack Obama to improve relations with Havana that includes
posters in Washington's Metro system and a letter to the White House
signed by 44 prominent personalities.

Source: Groups call for arrests in alleged Cuba plot - Cuba -
MiamiHerald.com -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/05/29/4146015/groups-call-for-arrests-in-alleged.html