Panama Refuses to Shelter Terrorist
Panamanian Foreign Minister Samuel Lewis Navarro denied Wednesday that his government plans to receive international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, detained in the US since May 2005.

The also first vice president rejected some reports of presumed pressure from the White House on Panama to receive the criminal.

What I can say categorically, on behalf of the Government, is there is no possibility that Panama is accepting Posada Carriles, stated Lewis Navarro.

Posada Carriles was arrested in Panama along with three accomplices when he was planning to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro at the 2000 Ibero-American Summit in that country.

Shortly before leaving office, then Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso pardoned the terrorists, who left the country supported by her administration s officials.

Several Panamanian figures have said those pardons were unconstitutional both because they were uncommon crimes and because their trial had not been concluded.

Among Posada s long list of terrorist activities is the October 1976 mid-air explosion of a Cuban airplane with 73 passengers aboard off the Barbados coast, as well as bomb attacks on Havana hotels in 1997, one of which killed Italian tourist Fabio di Celmo.