CubaMinrex. Sitio del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba

By Marcos Alfonso
CUBA, January 12th, 2011.- The candidates to the jury that expressed to have knowledge of the  explosion of the Cubana airliner in 1976, which killed all 73 people on board, were vetoed by Arturo Hernández, the lawyer of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles.

A report by the French news agency, published on Wednesday by Granma newspaper, points out that Judge Kathleen Cardone made a warning to Hernandez before the end of the Tuesday session.

She told him that his request of presenting the information of the Cuban government as a strategy to show that accusations against the former CIA agent would not be reliable could be turned down.

In view of the protests of the lawyer, district attorney Timothy Reardon commented "this is not History Channel", to point out that the information that the defense intends to present is irrelevant.

During the session, the district attorney addressed Posada Carriles and asked him directly if he remembered "the poor Italian," in reference to Fabio di Celmo, the tourist killed during the terrorist attack against the Copacabana Hotel.

The terrorist reacted in surprise and moved his head in a skeptic attitude.

With the selection of the jury -after interviewing 130 candidates-, composed of five men and seven women, the trial against Posada Carriles, carried out only for charges of migratory fraud, will begin on Wednesday, according to El Paso Newspaper. (Cubaminrex-Cuban News Agency)