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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Sept. 25, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Terrorist mercenary held in Cuba bombings

By John Catalinotto

Cuba's Interior Ministry issued a statement Sept. 11 announcing that on Sept. 4 it had arrested a mercenary for the bombings of three hotels and a restaurant that same day.

The detainee, Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon, told the Cubans he is a former member of the army of El Salvador and was trained as a sniper at a U.S. military academy in Georgia. He also said he had taken a course on explosives with U.S. trainers.

The detainee admitted he had brought the C-4 explosive used in the bombings into Cuba, and that he had planted the explosives that went off on Sept. 4. He also said he carried out the bombings of two other hotels on July 12.

One of the Sept. 4 bombings killed an Italian citizen, Fabio Di Celmo, who was in Cuba on vacation.

Cruz Leon said his sole motivation for the bombings was money. He said he did not care what the target was, and that he would be paid $4,500 for each bomb set off.

The Interior Ministry statement described what it called "a network [in El Salvador] of mercenaries devoted to international terrorism and drug trafficking [which] operates very closely linked to the Cuban counter-revolution in Miami." It also exposed how prior terror-bomb attacks aimed at Cuba--using similar materials and modus operandi-- had all entered Cuba from the United States and were sponsored by these same Miami-based groups.

The evidence backed up the Ministry's charges that the latest bombings were planned by counter-revolutionary groups in Miami and carried out with the approval and probably the active support of the U.S. government.

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