MANAGUA LINKS PLANE FIGURE TO '76 BOMBING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605210013-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 28, 2013
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: October 16, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605210013-7
'!'I- U)N PAGc ..__
WASHINGTON POST
16 October 1986
Managua '
Llnl~s Plane Figure
to "' 10 ombi
By .Julia Preston'l
lt'a.,hinNtnn!'na Inrriyn ti7r~trn
MANAGUA, Nicaragua, Oct.
15-Top Sandinista officials
claimed today that one of two al-
leged CIA employes of Cuban origin
said to have supervised a secret air
resupply operation in El Salvador is
a fugitive Cuban terrorist.
The officials quoted American
prisoner Eugene Hasenfus, 45, as
saving the Cuban, reportedly known
in El Salvador as "Ramon Medina,"
told associates there that he was a
"friend" of Vice President Bush.
Deputy Interior Minister Luis
Carrion and Commander Lenin
Cerna, head of the state security
police, reported at a-midday press
conference that they had concluded
"Medina" actually is Luis Posada
Carriles, who is wanted in Venezue-
la, they said, for the 1976 bombing
of a Cubana Airlines plane in which
73 persons were killed.
Reporters have not been able to
question Hasenfus, captured Oct. 6
in southern Nicaragua the day after
his C123K cargo plane was downed.
The press has no direct knowledge
of the conditions under which he is
being held or interrogated by the
Interior Ministry.
Sandinista intelligence officers
obtained what they called a positive
identification of Posada when Ha-
senfus picked the Cuban's photo
from an array of mug shots as the
man he knew as Medina, Cerna
said.
The officers deduced Posada's
identity from Hasenfus' statements
and other sources they did not di-
vulge. In response to a reporter's
question as to whether the Interior
Ministry was aided by Cuban intel-
ligence, Carrion said "friendly gov-
ernments" cooperated over several
years with a Nicaraguan investiga.
tion into the participation of Cubans
with the counterrevolutionary reb-.
els, known as contras.
The Sandinistas who asserted
that Posada was a CIA agent from
1 1 at least through 1967 did not
provide a photograph of th - .b n
The officers said Hasenfus told
his questioners that Medina was in
X
charge of finances and transporta-
tion for the contra air resupply op-
eration at the Salvadoran Air
Force's flopango base on the out-
skirts of San Salvador. In st_ate--
Rl W la St W ek
-Hasenfus said that
Medina and Max Gomez the other
~t1lin the oo ration in 1 Sal-
vador "worked for the CIA"
Hasenfus reportedly said that
Medina also handled any paperwork
at the U.S. Embassy for the Amer-
icans on the 24-to-26-person team
in the secret operation, since they
were prohibited from approaching
the embassy themselves.
Hasenfus "declared that both Me-
dina and Gomez boasted of being
friends of Vice President Bush,"
Carrion said. The prisoner report-
edly said the American pilot of the
crashed plane, William J. Cooper,
also confirmed to him that the two
Cubans were Bush associates.
[In Washington, Bush's press
secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, said
that Bush had "never met" Medina
and doesn't know him.]
Carrion cneakin? i English
said. There wasn't _any y
_fZpdy_l
111IIISgl~~~b. nffirPt~'
t2LBase.nfus....But Hasenfus. appar,
ently said oooe~`iatitrlidated
by Max Gomez cau e Gomel had
ties to the
asenfus is said to have believed
the contra airdro missions were
run by the because h
them through Southern Air Trans
=a Miami air cargo firm where
he worked in the 1960s when it was
under CIA contract.
None of the documents recov-
ered from the charred wreckage of
the plane links it directly to Bush or
the U.S. government, Carrion said.
Hasenfus cooperated voluntarily
with Sandinista intelligence, Car-
rion said.
"He said this wasn't his war," said
Carrion, who is one of the nine top
Sandinista commanders. Hasenfus
reportedly said he took the job as a
cargo handler on the mission at-
tracted by the salary of $3,000 a
month plus $750 a flight.
According to Sandinista files, Po-
sada spent more than eight years in
jail in Venezuela awaiting trial on
charges of conspiring in the 1976
airliner bombing before escaping in
August 1985. Sandinista intelligence
detected Posada in El Salvador ear-
lier this year under the Medina
pseudonym, Carrion said.
The Sandinista officers also said
Max Gomez resembles a Cuban
named Gustavo Villoldo who they
said worked with the contras in Hon-
duras in 1984. Carrion read from a
January 1984 letter signed by more
than a dozen contra field command.
ers and addressed to an American
"Col. Raymond" in Honduras, asking
for Villoldo to be allowed to join di-
rectly in the contra operation.
Hasenfus' wife, Sally Jean, left
Nicaragua today after six days to
rejoin their three children at-their
Wisconsin home and seek legal
counsel for her husband.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/02/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605210013-7