by Will Weissert
Jan. 26, 2011
Reprinted from AP

Abascal

EL PASO, Texas -- Defense attorneys for an elderly ex-CIA operative and anti-communist militant on trial for perjury argued Wednesday that a top prosecution witness' history of schizophrenic episodes and hallucinations make him unreliable.

Government informant Gilberto Abascal is key to the federal charges against Cuba-born Luis Posada Carriles, a personal nemesis of Fidel Castro. Abascal claimed he was on a boat that helped Posada sneak into the U.S. through Miami in 2005, though Posada told immigration officials he came across the Texas border.

Posada, 82, also is accused of lying during federal immigration hearings in El Paso about his involvement in a series of 1997 bombings in Cuba. He is charged with 11 counts of perjury, obstruction and immigration fraud.

In an effort to discredit Abascal, Posada attorney Arturo Hernandez introduced a medical evaluation from the Social Security Administration that indicated Abascal suffered from "severe schizophrenic symptoms" from 2002 until August 2004.

The symptoms stemmed from head injuries Abascal suffered after falling about 14 stories while working at a construction site in 2000, and he went to a Miami hospital emergency room in June 2004 with hallucinations. Abascal could control the problems with proper medication, according to the records.

Abascal, on the witness stand since Monday, said he sometimes suffers from insomnia and depression, but maintained that he is not schizophrenic.

"I don't know what the doctors put" in their records, he said.

Upon repeated questioning from Hernandez, he told the defense attorney: "I'm afraid of you."

"You've had me under surveillance for six years," Abascal snapped, alleging that Hernandez's office has watched him to find evidence that could be used against him during Posada's trial.

Hernandez chuckled, then said, "you have no reason to be afraid of me."

U.S. Attorney Jerome Teresinski objected several times as Hernandez questioned Abascal, after objecting to Hernandez introducing the 223 pages of Social Security records. Twice, the attorneys spoke privately with U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone.

When Hernandez continued to question Abascal about mental problems, Teresinski said he was "harassing the witness." Cardone dismissed the jury and Hernandez called for a mistrial, saying accusations by Abascal and Teresinski that he acted improperly had biased the jury.

The judge refused the request. She noted the high number of objections, saying part of the problem was that Abascal had been evading Hernandez's questions for two days.

"This is cross examination. It can sometimes get heated," Cardone said. "But, regardless of that, I'm not here to limit the cross."

Discussion of Abascal's medical records came after Hernandez spent hours introducing bank files showing that Abascal claimed to have no income in order to receive disability payments - but was actually working as a handyman at the time and collecting checks in other people's names.

Abascal, 45 and a native of Cuba, also admitted paying no federal taxes in 2005 and said that, despite his claims of being indigent, he made about $100,000 as co-owner of a Florida chicken farm.

He also dodged Hernandez's questions constantly, finally telling the defense attorney, "you have an obsession with money."

Abascal is central to the government's case because he testified that he was on a shrimp boat converted into a yacht that traveled to the resort island of Isla Mujeres in Mexico, picked up Posada, and helped him slip into Miami in March 2005.

Once in the U.S., Posada applied for citizenship and underwent a series of immigration hearings. During them, he said he paid a smuggler to drive him from Honduras, through Mexico and across the Texas border. He also failed to acknowledge his role in a series of 1997 hotel bombings in Havana that killed an Italian tourist - even though he gave an interview to the New York Times admitting responsibility.

Posada is public enemy No. 1 in Cuba, featured on propaganda billboards. He participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion, though he was not one of the invaders who made it to Cuban soil. In the 1980s, he helped support U.S.-backed "contra" rebels in Nicaragua.

Posada was arrested in Panama amid a plot to kill Castro during a visit there in 2000. He went to prison, but was eventually pardoned - then turned up in the U.S. He was held in an immigration detention center but released in 2007, and lived in Miami as the current case against him proceeded.

Cuba and Venezuela accuse Posada not only of the 1997 Cuban hotel bombings, but also of organizing an explosion aboard a Cuban airliner in 1976 that killed 73 people. A U.S. immigration judge has previously ruled that he couldn't be deported to either country because of fears of torture.

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Defense attacks credibility of key witness in Posada case

A crewman on the ship that he says smuggled Luis Posada Carriles into Miami testified Tuesday.

by Juan O. Tamayo
Jan. 26, 2011
Reprinted from the Miami Herald

EL PASO, Texas -- The mental ailments and tax dodges of a Hialeah handyman dominated the trial of accused Cuban bomber Luis Posada Carriles Wednesday as the defense hammered away at the credibility of the key prosecution witness.

Gilberto Abascal had testified earlier this week that Posada was smuggled by ship from Mexico to Miami, and not by land from Mexico to Houston as Posada claimed under oath.

But defense attorney Arturo V. Hernandez of Miami did not ask Abascal any questions about the smuggling trip and instead highlighted his myriad financial and mental issues.

Abascal's 2004 application for U.S. government payments for physical and mental disabilities noted he suffered from schizophrenia, showed "psychotic features" and was treated for hallucinations at Jackson Memorial Hospital that year.

He denied the schizophrenia but acknowledged that he had hallucinations during that period six years ago, and that he still suffers from insomnia and occasional depression.

Repeatedly accusing the defense of trying to trip him up, he told Hernandez, "I am afraid of you" and added, `You have had me under surveillance for six years."

Prosecutor Jerome Teresinski indicated Abascal had been under surveillance by the U.S. government, but gave no further details.

Posada, an 82-year-old Cuban exile trained in explosives by the CIA, is on trial on charges of lying under oath about how he slipped into the United States, his role in the bomb blasts that rocked Cuban tourist spots in 1997 and his denial that he ever had a Guatemalan passport.

Abascal was especialy combative as Hernandez got him to admit that he did not file a tax return in 2005, continued to work even after winning more than $600 a month in disability payments and lied in sworn statements.

"I didn't pay my taxes. I committed fraud," he replied after several dozen questions about his financial dodges. "I have made a thousand mistakes. If I have to face justice, I will face justice."

The handyman acknowledged that when he closed out an investment in a chicken farm in Perry, Fla., in 2005, he was paid with 10 checks of $9,000 each -- all made out to cash.

The money he invested came from the settlement of a workplace accident that left him with a bad neck and back and the start of his mental health problems, Abascal testified.

He also confirmed receiving monthly disability payments even as he worked as a handyman for Santiago Alvarez, a Cuban developer who owns about 700 apartments in South Florida.

Alvarez' companies paid him thousands of dollars under a variety of names, including those of his wife and later a male roommate, in 2004 and 2005, he testified.

Yet when he applied for government child support payments in 2005, apparently after a fight with his wife, Abascal signed a sworn form reporting he had only $5 in cash or a bank account, according to evidence introduced by Hernandez.

Alvarez captained the ship Santrina when it picked up Posada in Mexico's Isla Mujeres in March of 2005 and smuggled him into Miami, Abascal testified on Monday.

Exasperated by the prosecution's serial objections to the Hernandez questions and requests for private consultations known as sidebars, U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Cardone laid down tough new rules for the trial Wednesday.

The sidebars will be kept to a minimum, she cautioned, and "when I rule on an objection, it's over. . . . Otherwise, there will be sanctions."

After Teresinski complained the defense was harassing the witness, Hernandez moved for a mistrial for the second time in the 11 days of hearings.

Cardone quickly denied the motion but for the third time Wednesday warned Abascal to answer the questions he was asked -- a subtle jab to stop arguing with Hernandez.

Before the start of Wednesday's session chief prosecutor Timothy J. Reardon told U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Cardone that he still has about two weeks' worth of witnesses to present to the jury.

Hernandez said he could wrap up the defense in about five days.