• Submitted by: manso
• Editorial Articles
• 03 / 20 / 2011

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By ALFONSO CHARDY.elnuevoherald.com. The star prosecution witness in the Luis Posada Carriles trial says the exile militant admitted to her in an interview 14 years ago that he played a role in the bombing of Cuban tourist sites.

EL PASO, Texas -- The prosecution’s star witness in the Luis Posada Carriles perjury trial told the jury Friday that the exile militant, in an interview 14 years ago, admitted a role in bombings against tourist sites in Cuba in which an Italian tourist was killed.

“Yes he did, in a hundred ways he admits to the bombing campaign,’’ testified Ann Louise Bardach, a former New York Times contract writer who interviewed Posada in 1998, one year after the Cuba bombings. “He was proud this was a success, minus the death.’’

Bardach’s statement was the most explicit about Posada’s alleged role in the bombings since the trial began Jan. 10. It was all the more significant since Bardach’s interview with Posada, on which subsequent articles were published in The New York Times, is now considered Posada’s acknowledgement of responsibility in the bombs that exploded at hotels, bars and the world-famous Bodeguita del Medio restaurant in old Havana.

Bardach had linked Posada to the bombings at the start of her testimony, but her statement Friday was far more explicit than anything she testified to in the last two days. On Wednesday, she also testified that at the end of the interview Posada gave her three pages of handwritten notes that included the sentence, “he does not admit the bombs in Havana. but he does not deny either.’’

Nevertheless, in testimony Friday, Bardach suggested that the totality of Posada’s remarks led her to conclude that he not only admitted a role in the attacks but also acknowledged being mastermind of the bombing campaign.

“He was both implicit and explicit,’’ she said.

An article written by Bardach and co-author Larry Rohter, published by The New York Times on July 12, 1998, said “Mr. Posada proudly admitted authorship of the hotel bomb attacks last year.’’

Bardach, sparring with Posada’s lead defense attorney, Arturo V. Hernandez, reaffirmed that conclusion in her testimony Friday when Hernandez asked whether his client had ever in the interview “explicitly admitted’’ to the bombing campaign.

It was at that point that Bardach shot back: “Yes he did, in a hundred ways he admits to the bombing campaign. He was proud this was a success, minus the death.’’

Through his questions, Hernandez was trying to paint Bardach as a reporter who exaggerated conclusions in her stories or who used far too many anonymous sources to write stories against Posada.

Bardach strongly defended her stories, denying that she exaggerated issues or sought to harm Posada with her reporting.

“Listen Mr. Hernandez,’’ she said at one point in cross-examination, “throughout this entire ordeal, I have always tried to be respectful and sometimes protective of your client.’’

The prosecution has played for the jury portions of Bardach’s taped interview conducted in Aruba in June 1998. Hernandez, in cross-examination, was trying to get Bardach to acknowledge that she selected quotes that appear to link Posada to the bombings and ignored others in which his client is vague in his answers.

In one of the portions played Friday, Bardach asks Posada how long it took him to plan and prepare the bombs. Posada is heard answering: “One month.’’

Previously, jurors had heard portions in which Posada appears to regret the death of Fabio Di Celmo, the Italian tourist killed when a bomb exploded in the lobby bar of the Copacabana Hotel in Havana on Sept. 4, 1997.

“We tried, we put small explosives,’’ Posada was heard saying in the tape at one point. “We don’t…because we don’t want to hurt anybody…just to make a big scandal. And…that the tourists don’t come…anymore.’’

Toward the end of the prosecution’s questions earlier Friday, Bardach expressed great discomfort about being a witness in the trial. In a dramatic exchange between her and lead prosecutor T.J. Reardon III, Bardach said her presence on the witness stand eroded journalists’ ability to perform their jobs properly.

“I am mortified to be put in this position,’’ she told the jury. “I’ve been five years battling this. It absolutely undermines the trust the public has if reporters are hauled into court.’’

The judge presiding over the trial also strongly admonished Bardach for continuously adding commentary or narrative in her answers to Hernandez or the prosecution. At one point, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone sent the jury out of the courtroom while she scolded Bardach about how she answered questions.

“I’ve repeatedly instructed you not to add commentary in your answers,’’ Cardone told Bardach. “It’s important that this case be fair to the government and the defense. Just listen to the question and answer the question.’’

Cardone also told Bardach she didn’t need to have on the stand copies of two of her books that at times she held up for jurors to see.

The books were Without Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana and Washington and Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana.

Reardon, the lead prosecutor, seized her copy of Cuba Confidential and turned it into a government exhibit. Bardach asked for her book back during a break in testimony, but Reardon told her it was now a government exhibit and the prosecution needed it for trial.

Source: /www.miamiherald.com/2011/03/18/v-fullstory/2122002/