Jailed exile , freed to return By HELGA S,ILVA
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Herald 511lft Wnter
A Mia!Dian jailed 27 months for the attempted :kldnaplng of. a Cuban dlpl?mat Mondll:Y a~81ted deportation from MeXICO back to Miami, a free man. Gaspar Jimenez, 47, was transferred Sunday from the Ch~tumal prison in the state of Quintana Roo. A U.S citizen, he was in custody Monday in Mexico City awaiting deportation proceedings. His wife, CarmEln Jimenez, is now in Mexico working on his release, a family member who refused to be identified said Monday. Jimenez "He is still detained in jail, we don't know when he will arrive," the woman said in a telephone intetview. Jimenez is the second man convicted in the 1976 attempted kidnaping of the Cuban consul in Merida, Mexico, to be freed in the last five months. Gustavo Castillo was released and deported to Miami last December. A third man, Orestes Ruiz, was sentenced to 32 years for fatally shooting the diplomat'S bodyguard during the kidnaping attempt. Ruiz
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Miami
~ ?:10~~ - ~~~ remains in jail. , 0-- I - 8...:3 -/ July 1976 incident in Mexico. castillo avoided
A U.S. Justice Department memorandum arrest and returned to Miami. " Tite Mexican government charged that the exiles were going to offer to exchange the consul for political prisoners in Cuba. Eight months later, in March 1977, Jimenez managed to escape from a Mexican jail both as pnnclpal figures. and made his way to Miami. Jimenez's nine-year prison sentence was . reduced, and he was given ad4itional credit for In January 1978, both Castillo and Jimenez work time and the three years' he serve!! in a were a~re~ted in Miami. They ~ere extradited U.S. prison awaiting extradition, to MeXICO In February andApnl 1981. "He left Sunday after the papers were A Mexican court ' found them guilty of the cleared," said Armando Reyes, the duty officer attempted kidnaping of Cuban consul Daniel in charge of the Chetumal prison, Ferrer in July 1976. The consul's bodyguard, When Castillo arrived in Miami last De- Artagnan Diaz, was killed during the attempt. cember, he was given a hero's welcome by the local Cuban exile community. Last month, a Herald investigation disThe conviction of Jimene~ and Castillo closed that Castillo and Jimenez were key susstemmed from a violent period in the mid '70s pects in the 1976 bombing attack on former when Miami-based Cuban exiles launched a WQBA Radio News Director Emilio Milian. series of attacks on Castro government offiA secret eyewitness, who passed ten polycials abroad. graph tests, said he saw Jimenez working Attempts were made to kidnap Cuban dip- under Milian's car within one hour of the bomlomats thoughout Latin America. A month bing. after the Merida incident, two Cuban embassy Despite a lengthy investigation that conofficials in Argentina were kidnaped. In ~ep tember 1976, violence reached a peak when a tinued while Jimenez was in custody in Miami, Cubana Airline plane was blown up, killing 73 no one was ever charged in the Milian case. passengers. . Castillo and Jimenez have both denied any inJimenez and Ruiz were arrested after the volvement in that bombing.
~nce asserted that both Jimen~z and
