Panama mulls pardon, asks Cuban ambassador to leave

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

PANAMA CITY, Panama (AFP): President Mireya Moscoso is mulling a pardon for Cubans convicted in a plot to assassinate Cuba's president and ordered Cuba's ambassador to leave, Panama's foreign minister said Tuesday.

Moscoso took the measure after Cuba threatened to break relations over rumors that Moscoso considered pardoning the would-be assassins.

"Now, after Cuba's accusations, (Moscoso) is considering" the pardons, Foreign Minister Harmodio Arias said after announcing that Moscoso had asked Cuban Ambassador Carlos Zamora to leave.

Moscoso, whose term ends in September, was considering a pardon for anti-Castro Cubans in a Panamanian prison, confirming rumors that set off the diplomatic row on the weekend, the foreign minister said.

"We have simply asked the Cuban government to withdraw its ambassador in Panama and we have withdrawn our ambassador in Havana," he said.

"We have not broken relations."

Arias added that Panama would maintain trade relations with Cuba, which generates some 300 million dollars per year.

Havana made no comment Monday on the row.

Cuba had threatened to break off relations if Moscoso pardoned anti-Castro leader Luis Posada Carriles and three accomplices, who were convicted in April of trying to kill Castro in Panama in November 2000. All are Cuban citizens.

A Panamanian court sentenced Posada Carriles, 76, to eight years in prison for having planned to kill Castro at a 2000 summit of Latin American and Iberian leaders in Panama.

Accomplice Gaspar Jimenez Escobedo also received an eight-year sentence, while accomplices Guillermo Novo Sampol and Pedro Remon received seven years each.

Cuba's foreign ministry said August 14 that anti-Castro news media in Miami had repeatedly commented that Moscoso would pardon the four Cuban prisoners and that she would make the decision between August 15 and 30.

"The historical responsibility and the consequences from this insulting decision will fall entirely on President Mireya Moscoso and her government," the Cuban foreign ministry statement said on the weekend.

Cuba has repeatedly requested the extradition of the men.

Earlier this year, Cuba, the only Communist state in the Americas got into similar diplomatic spats with Mexico and Peru, which in both cases escalated to the recall of ambassadors. The rows were sparked by Castro's ire that both countries had voted against Cuba before the UN human rights commission.

Cuba's relations with Mexico have returned to normal, but remain at the charge d'affaires level with Peru.

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