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ONE of the two sniper rifles that US authorities suspect were to be used in a plot to kill Cuban President Fidel Castro was purchased by the new president of the Cuban American National Foundation, The Miami Herald newspaper said in December.
CANF President Francisco Hernandez, who took over the organisation after the death of Jorge Mas Canosa bought the weapon in 1994, according to FBI records. The second rifle was bought by Miami exile Juan Evelio Pou, a veteran of the Bay of Pigs invasion, FBI records say.
The two .50-caliber rifles, capable of firing a flat-trajectory bullet for nearly one mile, were seized by the U.S. Coast Guard on October 27 aboard a Miami-based yacht carrying four Cuban exiles off the northwest coast of Puerto Rico.
The four were charged with failing to report the guns. But a U.S. grand jury in San Juan is still investigating Coast Guard testimony that one of the exiles blurted out that the guns were to be used to kill Castro during the November Ibero-American summit meeting on the Venezuelan island of Margarita.
The Cuban government has repeatedly accused CANF and its members of financing armed attacks on Cuba, but this is the first time a CANF official has been linked to an FBI investigation of an alleged plot against Cuba.
Neither Hernandez, nor Pou have been charged in the case.
The San Juan grand jury subpoenaed Hernandez to testify before it on November 19, according to one of the defence lawyers in the case. Hernandez appeared before the grand jury, but his testimony is secret.
Also subpoenaed was another Miamian, Jose Antonio Llama , a member of CANF's 28-member Executive Committee, who is listed in State of Florida records as the owner of the yacht seized off Puerto Rico, the 46-foot La Esperanza.
Llama's Puerto Rico lawyer, Jose Pagan, said that he had advised his client to refuse to testify before the grand jury. Llama's appearance was eventually postponed.
Justice Department officials traveled to San Juan from Washington last week to confer with local prosecutors in the case.