Without Fidel by Ann Louise Bardach

Author:Ann Louise Bardach
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana, and Washington
Publisher: SCRIBNER
Published: 2009-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Justice Department’s Posada team was led by two career prosecutors from its National Security Division, John Van Lonkhuyzen, a caustic man in his fifties, and his swing opposite, a soft-spoken attorney named Paul Ahern. They were a duo well suited to play good cop/ bad cop. Assisting them were two investigators relatively new to the JTTF, Omar Vega of the FBI and Jorge González of Miami-Dade Police Department, both Cuban born.

In January 2006, the DOJ had convened a grand jury in Newark to look into the roles of Posada and his collaborators in the 1997 bombings in Cuba. FBI investigators concluded that Posada had smuggled plastic explosives into Cuba inside Prell shampoo bottles and the soles of shoes. An Italian tourist was killed by one such bomb on September 4, 1997, at the Copacabana Hotel.

In late 2006, when the DOJ’s investigation was handled by Ed Nucci and later by David Deitch, the Justice Department offered Posada a deal: plead guilty to financing the 1997 bombings in Havana and serve less than five years in prison. If he accepted the deal, his five confederates in Union City (Rubén and José Gonzalo, Ángel Alfonso, Abel Hernandez, and an accountant named Oscar Rojas) would be spared indictment. According to Gilberto García, who represented the men (most were named on Posada’s infamous fax), the deal was a good one for everyone all around.

In Union City, the feeling was that Posada could spare the men and their families a good deal of grief, do a small amount of time in prison, and be seen as a hero. But when their attorney, García, flew to Miami and presented the deal to Posada’s legal team in September, he was stung by the reaction. According to García, there was “zero interest” in any deal under which Posada received jail time. “I was told to ‘butt out’—those words exactly—by Eduardo Soto,” said García, referring to the father of Posada’s attorney, Soto Jr. It was the father, he said, who had known Posada since Cuba, who was “calling the shots.”

For a time, rejecting the deal seemed a decision that Posada would likely regret. On September 19 and 20, 2007, three high-value witnesses were called to the Newark grand jury to testify about the flow of money from U.S. exiles to Posada to support militant strikes. The government had put the squeeze on knowledgeable players, said a Posada attorney, compelling them to provide damning testimony. One witness, who worked for Abel Hernandez at his popular restaurant Mi Bandera, testified that some twenty exiles in Union City had wired money to Posada in 1997. According to Gilberto García, her testimony was corroborated by her friend, who owned the Western Union in Union City, from which the monies were sent to Posada. (In February 1998, the Western Union was sold to Abel Hernandez, one of the men named on the fax.)

The prosecutors were particularly keen on the role of the CANF and its officers. This was an especially rich irony: CANF had morphed into a moderate exile group by 2000.

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