PANAMA, June 30 (PL).— The Supreme Court of Panama issued a unanimous ruling on Monday stating that several presidential pardons issued by former President Mireya Moscoso in August 2004 were unconstitutional.

Moscoso passed decrees releasing Luis Posada Carriles and three other Cuban-born accomplices involved in an assassination plot against Cuban President Fidel Castro. The four terrorists now operate from the United States.

A press note read on the evening TV stated that the Supreme Court judges had declared three of the decrees—issued on August 25, 26 and 30, 2004— invalid, ordering the criminal processes against the men be reinstated.

Moscoso released the men just days before current President Martin Torrijos took over the presidential mandate.

Posada Carriles, who wasn’t mentioned in the press note, was arrested in Panama in November 2000 during the Ibero-American Summit when he and his accomplices were planning to assassinate Fidel Castro at an address at the University of Panama.

The presidential pardon set off a wave of popular indignation and lawsuits filed by Attorney General Jose Antonio Sossa; the mayor of Panama City, Juan Carlos Navarro; and former public prosecutor Gerardo Solis.

After his release, Posada Carriles entered the United States where he lives in freedom in Miami. Among the numerous crimes to which he has confessed was the October 6, 1976 midair bombing of a Cuban passenger plane off the coast of Barbados killing all 73 persons on board.

Granma 01-07-2008