Posada, together with Gaspar Jiménez,
Guillermo Novo and Pedro Remón were taken to the Panamanian Institute of
Legal Medicine.
According to a report by Argentina
Barrera Flores, a first circuit judge responsible for the case at the time,
“they were informed of the decision and that it was compulsory.”
But in front of the Institute’s experts
and legal representatives, Posada and his henchmen retorted that “they would
in no way allow them to take those samples.”
They reiterated that “they would not
allow the technician or any other person to touch them,” and then refused to
sign a document attesting to the fact that they had refused to provide the
samples.
Law No. 80 of the Republic of Panama,
passed on November 23, 1998, establishes the compulsory nature of DNA
testing and implicitly indicates that refusal to provide samples constitutes
an admission of guilt.
THE BLACK BRIEFCASE AND THE RED
MITSUBISHI
For the Panamanian judicial system, there
is no doubt that the explosives found after the arrest of Posada and his
crew thanks to the cooperation of their Panamanian driver, entered the
country at the Paso Canoa border point on November 16, 2000 in a bag carried
by Gaspar Jiménez. There were no less than 33.44 kilos of military
explosives…an amount that would clearly provoke a disaster.
To better understand what happened, we
should recap on the chronology of the conspirators’ movements in those
November days leading up to the Ibero-American Summit where they planned to
assassinate the Cuban President and all those who would have been present at
the university.
November 3 - Posada arrives in Panama
from Costa Rica through the Paso Canoas border point, using a false passport
- No. A143258 under the name of Franco Rodríguez Mena - a gift from his
friends in El Salvador. (He had already used the same false document on a
previous reconnaissance trip on August 12, 2000).
November 6 - At 10.28am, Posada appears
at the Las Vegas hotel apartments in Panama where he rents Room 215. From
there he contacts his buddy César Matamoros, a Cuban (with drug trafficking
convictions) resident in the Panamanian capital who offers his employee José
Manuel Hurtado as Posada’s driver.
Hurtado will go on to play a central role
in events. This modest black worker that Matamoros uses as if he were his
own property, will spontaneously cooperate with the judicial system in the
first stage after the arrest of the conspirators, until his white boss and
Posada’s mafioso advisors direct him otherwise.
November 8 - Hurtado sees Posada who says
that he wishes to change hotels. Some 500 meters from the Las Vegas, they
visit the Coral Suites hotel apartments where Posada reserves a room.
November 9 - Posada goes to Tocumen
airport in the capital with Hurtado to collect his Cuban-Salvadoran friend
Raúl Hamouzava (a fugitive from Panamanian justice since these events took
place). At the Dollar Rent-A-Car agency, Posada and Hamouzova hire a red
Mitsubishi Lancer with license plate 223 251, which Hurtado will drive.
November 14 - At five a.m. Posada leaves
Panama City with Hurtado in the hired car and heads for the province of
Chiriqui where his friend, drug trafficker José Valladares (“Pepe the
Cuban”) has a ranch called Jacu, in a region bordering on Costa Rica and the
neighboring Paso Canoas border post.
November 15 - Guillermo Novo arrives at
Paso Canoas and presents himself to Panamanian immigration, carrying a valid
U.S. passport No. 043788076.
November 16 - Posada and Novo collect
Pedro Remón and Gaspar Jiménez at the same Panamanian immigration point.
Hurtado puts both men’s luggage in the red Mitsubishi. Amongst the suitcases
is one black bag bearing the logo of the Miami Marlins and The Miami
Herald, in which three days later on November 19, the police will find
the explosives in Panama City.
Jiménez crosses the border using a false
U.S. passport (No. 044172940) in the name of Manuel Díaz, and Remón a valid
U.S. passport (No. 084987631). Later, it will come to light that Jiménez had
arrived in Costa Rica on the 13th, two days before crossing the border…
Remón for his part, arrives from Miami,
after a badly explained one-day stay in Atlanta, Georgia where he allegedly
took part in a trade seminar.
Important detail: before the judge, Remón
explains that he had met his buddy Jiménez in San José’s Best Western Hotel
in Costa Rica, so as to then travel with him by plane to Coto 47 airport on
the border. According to the Attorney General’s report, Remón then explained
that “for physiological reasons, he went into the undergrowth where he also
used the opportunity to take out the GPS (Global Positioning System) that he
was carrying and fix the geographical position of the location.” A strange
action that remains to be explained.
THE EXPLOSIVES, FOR JIMÉNEZ
That same day (16th), following a meeting
at the Jacu ranch, Posada, Novo and Remón travel by plane on the Aeroperla
airline from the city of David (Chiriqui) to Panama City.
Posada, author of the mid-flight
explosion of a Cubana Aviation plane in 1976 that caused the deaths of 73
people, did not want to travel by plane with the explosives…He orders
Jiménez to drive with Hurtado to the capital by road in the red
Mitsubishi…with the black bag containing 33.44 kilos of military explosives
in the trunk.
Before the judge, Jiménez will claim that
he traveled by car for health reasons: “because it’s a small plane and could
cause a blood clot.”
Posada and Remón arrive at Coral Suites
in the afternoon and Jiménez at around 11:00 p.m. The first two are
occupying Room 310 and Jiménez joins Novo in 509 (the most expensive in the
hotel). Both rooms were reserved well in advance by Posada. On this night,
Hurtado leaves the keys of the red Mitsubishi with Jiménez and goes home in
a taxi.
November 17 - Jiménez and Novo go for a
drive, passing close by the Cesar Park hotel - the venue of the Ibero-American
Summit - and then around the grounds of the university where Fidel is due to
address 1,500 people in the auditorium some hours later. They are with
Hurtado, the driver, in another vehicle - a black Mitsubishi Lancer - that
Novo has rented.
Remón provides another Mitsubishi rental;
a Galant model that he is using with Posada.
Hours later, Posada will order Hurtado to
take the red Mitsubishi to be cleaned with a view to returning it the
following day. We should remember that it was in this car that the
explosives were transported from the border.
According to Hurtado, he was only ordered
to clean this car and not the others.
Around four in the afternoon, several
Panamanian police agents who had been alerted by Fidel minutes before in a
press conference of the presence of terrorists in the Coral Suites hotel
apartments, surround the place under the orders of Roger Diez Quintero,
chief of the Security Division of the Judicial Technical Police, and
Inspector Ignacio Taylor.
They observe two individuals who, on
seeing the police arrive, cross the road in a suspicious manner. It is Remón
and Novo, who are stopped and then arrested by Detective Faustino Portugal.
Arriving at the car wash, driver Hurtado
realizes - according to his later statement - “that Mr. Posada had left a
case that he always carried with him on the back seat of the car.” Concerned
about the strange contents, he calls his boss, Matamoros, who tells him “to
give it to the Cubans”, referring to Posada and his companions.
Suspecting that he has been involved in a
criminal act, Hurtado returns to the hotel apartments but sees the police
presence at the moment when they are about to penetrate the entrance to
Coral Suites with “the emergency lights flashing”, according to
investigators. He then accelerates and is pursued by Inspector Taylor in a
police vehicle, heading for nearby España Avenue where he disappears amongst
the traffic.
Minutes later, Posada and his
accomplices, all under arrest are questioned about the red Mitsubishi but
affirm that they “know nothing about the car”, according to Taylor’s
subsequent report.
November 19 - Located by detectives,
Hurtado takes police captain Feliciano Benítez to a patch of waste ground
close to Tocumen airport where they unearth the famous black bag with the
Marlins logo containing the explosives, a device identified by explosive
experts as a firing system, a remote control device and five “Marine Band”
radios amongst other items.
The cartridges contained in the
explosives bear the stamp “Costa Rica”.
Inside the bag they also find a white
towel with black, yellow and chocolate-colored stains and another with
chocolate and gray stains. A subsequent analysis by a criminal expert
reveals that the towels were used on mixing the explosives.
The chemical test carried out by expert
Eybar Castillo will reveal the presence of “human hairs”.
THEY ALL REFUSE TO COOPERATE WITH JUSTICE
On December 6 and 7, 2000, barely three
weeks after the suspects are arrested, the Attorney General summons them in
order to receive their statements. However, the four detainees flatly refuse
to testify on the events. They also refuse to undergo psychiatric and
handwriting tests requested by the Attorney General.
It will be six months before they begin
to talk, tell lies and once again demonstrate their total unwillingness to
cooperate with justice.
They continue refusing to submit to the
DNA test , despite the insistence and subsequent order by the judicial
authorities. According to the Panamanian Attorney General’s report, Law 80
“anticipates a grave indication” against those guilty of such behavior.
The explanation is simple of course.
Posada and his accomplices are terrified that this simple laboratory test
would establish, beyond all doubt, that they are the owners of the black bag
bearing The Miami Herald logo.
And that they do indeed deserve a long
stay behind bars not just for this conspiracy but for their numerous and
atrocious past crimes, and the danger represented by these international
terrorists financed and directed by the Miami mafia.