Cuba Says it Arrested Four Miami Men Plotting a ‘Terrorist’ Attack 3

Headquarters of Cuba's dreaded Ministry of the Interior (MININT) [Photo -- Havana Times]

Headquarters of Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior (MININT) [Photo — Havana Times]

By Juan O. Tamayo, JTamayo@elNuevoHerald.com

Three militant Cuban exiles in South Florida on Wednesday denied a Havana allegation that they ordered four men arrested in Cuba to attack military installations — the first such violent plot reported in more than a decade.

A Cuban Interior Ministry statement said Miami residents Raibel Pacheco Santos, Obdulio Rodríguez González, Félix Monzón Álvarez and José Ortega Amador were arrested April 26 but gave few other details.

The four men “admitted that they planned to attack military installations with the objective of promoting violent activities,” the statement said, adding that three of them had traveled to Cuba in 2013 to study and plan their attack.

Cuba’s announcement may be linked to its inclusion last week in a U.S. list of countries that support international terrorism, the three Havana spies in U.S. prisons and perhaps even the desperation of an elderly exile, analysts in Miami said.

Pacheco, 31, a Hialeah resident, registered a “Cuban Liberation Force Inc.” with the Florida Department of State in 2009 and listed its purpose as helping “the people in Cuba to win back their democracy and their lost liberties.”

The only post on its blog says the organization was “founded at the request of members of the armed forces who are inside Cuba, as well as members of organizations and the people” with its only goal being “the toppling of the regime.”

Rodriguez and Monzón attended some meetings of exile militants in Miami six or seven years ago but were not well known in the community and were not known to be members of any particular anti-Castro organization, said Miami radio host Hector Fabian.

The Interior Ministry statement late Tuesday said the four men detained in Cuba confessed that their plans for “terrorist actions” have been “organized under the direction” of Miami exiles Santiago Álvarez Fernández, Osvaldo Mitat and Manuel Alzugaray.

“This, I did not do,” said Alvarez, 72, a long-time militant exile and wealthy real estate developer imprisoned from 2005 to 2009 for illegal possession of firearms allegedly stockpiled for raids on Cuba.

Feature continues here:  Cuba Arrests Four

3 comments

  1. The Miami Herald and Juan Tamayo have a pattern whenever mentioning Luis Posada Carriles: they always saddle on him the Cubana Airliner bombing. However, they never mention that he was found not guilty by a federal jury in Texas of eleven counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and immigration fraud in 2011. The testimony against him by New York Times reporter reporter Ann Louise Bardach was totally discredited as falsehood. The Miami Herald also always omits mentioning that two Venezuelans, Hernan Ricardo and Freddy Lugo, were convicted of the airline bombing, sentenced to twenty years, and for decades have been free in Caracas. More on the Miami Hereald here
    http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/fiedler.htm

  2. I don´t know whether the four riders were involved or not in terrorist plans, but the farfetched reference to Posada Carriles is pure agitprop, as before the charges of planing a sabotage against the Scarabeo oil rig, setting on fire Manerud´s travel agency in Coral Gables and even plotting to kill both Chavez and Maduro.

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