ERNESTO Abreu, president of the Cuban Patriotic Junta, affiliated to Alpha 66, and the registered owner of the Santrina vessel that illegally transported Luis Posada Carriles to the United States has been detained in El Paso, Texas after refusing to testify before a Grand Jury regarding the matter.

According to El Nuevo Herald, which reported the news, Abreu pleaded the Fifth Amendment in order to avoid responding to questions from that legal instance.

The 43-year-old man, son of notorious terrorist Ernestino Abreu, and an accomplice of Posada since his days in Panama, appears in the official register as president of the Caribbean Marine Ecological Protection Foundation (FPEMC), the phony owner of the Santrina shrimper in which Posada made his clandestine crossing.

In May, Abreu had to appear in El Paso along with his buddy Generoso Bringas, also a member of FPEMC, a front organization for the Miami terrorist group headed by Santiago Alvarez Fernández-Magriñat.

Bringas was chief of the Revolutionary Recuperation Movement (MRR) to which Abreu’s father belonged. According to El Nuevo Herald, Abreu was taken to a jail in Chaparral, New Mexico.

In Miami, the Cuban Patriotic Forum (FPC) has spoken out in support of the terrorist. The FPC comprises the Cuban Liberty Council of Luis Zúñiga and Roberto Martín Pérez; the Cuban Unity of Armando Pérez Roura and Antonio Calatayud; the 2506 Brigade of Félix Rodríguez Mendigutía; the Cuban Political Prisoners Council of Reinaldo Aquit; and the People’s Protagonist Party of Orlando Bosch.

It should be noted that all these groups, without exception, have very close connections to anti-Cuba terrorism. Several of the individuals involved with the FPC have known links to the White House, as is the case with Zúñiga, or with the Caleb McCarry’s Bush Plan campaigns in Europe, in which noted terrorist Aquit has participated.

Abreu was called before a Grand Jury of El Paso towards the end of May, along with exile Generoso Bringas, a friend of Posada. Two other figures in the Santrina case, José Hilario ''Pepín'' Pujol, 76, and Rubén López Castro, 67, who were interrogated by the Grand Jury on June 21 have also pleaded the Fifth in order not to reveal what they evidently know about his participation in the plot hatched by Santiago Alvarez.

HE LED THE MANEUVER OF INTIMIDATION IN ALVAREZ’ FAVOR
The trial of Santiago Alvarez and Osvaldo Mitat for illegal possession of arms is scheduled for Fort Lauderdale on September 11, a fateful date.

Ironically, a few months ago, Ernesto Abreu publicly announced that was going to transport more than 100 people to protest outside this court, as part of an intimidation operation.

The Vigil Mambisa organization of Miguel Saavedra, famous for his much talked-about contribution to the 2000 "election" of George W. Bush, has announced its participation in the gross maneuver.

Posada is hoping that on August 14 in El Paso he might be given U.S. citizenship in virtue of his service status with the U.S. military, and more precisely, with the CIA.

Pujol must appear before a Grand Jury again in Texas the following day. 
Ernestino Abreu, the father of Ernesto Abreu, was captured after arriving in Cuba from Miami in May 1998, nine days after landing on a northern beach in Pinar del Rio province. The Cuban authorities caught him in possession of several weapons and counterfeit Cuban convertible pesos in a house in the town of Minas de Matahambre, where he was a guest.

That expedition, organized by MRR, was entirely financed by an close friend of Ernestino Abreu, the terrorist Orlando Bosch and his People’s Protagonist party and also had the participation of Fausto Marimón, killed on June 30, 1998 by two Alpha-66 assassins.

IN PANAMA WITH PEÑALVER AND CRUZ CRUZ

Ernesto Abreu was in Panama, along with Jesús Peñalver Mazorra and René Cruz Cruz, for Posada Carriles’ trial, where he advised terrorist Reinol Rodríguez and acted as confidant to the old ringleader.

He carried a briefcase and publicly commented that he was the "manager" of boss Nelsy Castro Matos and his associate Santiago Alvarez.

The Santrina shrimper — 88 feet long and federally registered— was used to bring Posada to Miami in late March 2005.

In FBI documents presented to the federal court that is trying Alvarez and Mitat the U.S. legal authorities admitted that Posada Carriles illegally entered Miami aboard that vessel.

In addition to the Miami "promoter" and terrorist Santiago Alvarez and the "capitán" and CIA operative José Hilario "Pepín" Pujol, Rubén López Castro, Gilberto Abascal and Oswaldo Mitat were also on the boat.

A few months ago, "Pepín" Pujol stated to journalists that he had been trained by the CIA and also confessed to "having carried out many incursions" into Cuban territory, calling himself an "expert" at infiltrating Cuba by sea.

Rubén López Castro, 67, is the owner of the house where Posada was staying for at least six weeks while hiding out in Miami, and where he was detained May 17. On October 4, 1973 he participated in the terrorist attack that killed Cuban fisherman Luis Torna Mirabal.

The El Paso Grand Jury still needs to question Alvarez, Mitat, Pujol, López Castro, Abascal, among others if it wishes to know the whole truth about the Santrina case at last.