Guistino Di Celmo dies in Havana; Posada in car accident in Miami

Two key, interconnected figures in the story of the Cuban Five are in the news.

Guistino Di Celmo, 94, died in Havana on September 2, 2015. An Italian-born businessman, he relocated to Havana after his son, Fabio, was murdered by a terrorist bomb set off in the Copacabana Hotel on September 4, 1997.

The terrorist behind the 1997 bombing campaign that targeted Havana’s tourist hotels was a notorious Cuban exile named Luis Posada. He is sometimes referred to as “the bin Laden of Latin America.”

In 1998, Posada boasted of his involvement in those bombings in an interview with the New York Times, claiming the Italian just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. “I sleep like a baby,” he said.

Last Thursday, August 27, 2015, Posada, now 87, suffered  a broken clavicle and three fractured ribs in a car accident in Miami.

Although the Cuban government has repeatedly asked for his extradition to face charges in connection with his role in the 1976 Cubana Airlines bombing that killed 73 civilians, the U.S. has refused. He remains a free man in Miami.

Here’s a link to an excerpt from What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five that documents the day of Fabio Di Celmo’s death and luis Posada’s role in it.

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