3 more won't testify in Posada case

Three more associates of anti-Castro Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles have pleaded guilty to charges of refusing to testify before a federal grand jury, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Thursday.

Ruben Lopez-Castro, 69, and Jose Pujol, 78, pleaded guilty Tuesday to obstruction of justice for refusing to testify. Ernesto Abreu pleaded guilty to the same charge Dec. 3. Two other men, Osvaldo Mitat, 65, and 66-year-old Santiago Alvarez, also pleaded guilty last month for refusing to testify.

All five are scheduled to be sentenced next year. They face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Prosecutors said the men were granted immunity to testify before the grand jury last year but still refused.

Posada, 79, was accused of lying to investigators in a bid to become a naturalized U.S. citizen. Prosecutors argued about how he sneaked into the United States from Mexico and other facts.

Posada, a former CIA operative and U.S. Army officer, has claimed that he was brought across the border in South Texas by a smuggler. But prosecutors argued that he really arrived in Florida on a boat from Mexico.

The case was dismissed earlier this year after U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone ruled that the government engaged in trickery and made several mistakes while trying to build its criminal case.

Posada remains free, living in Florida, but faces a deportation order. An immigration judge in El Paso has ruled that he should be deported, but that he cannot be sent to Cuba, where he was born, or Venezuela, where he is a naturalized citizen.

The governments of both countries want him handed over to face charges that he plotted the deadly 1976 bombing of a Cuban jetliner while in Caracas.

Posada has denied wrongdoing.

(This version corrects spelling from Carilles to Carriles.)