Panamanian police said late on Friday they had arrested the presumed mastermind behind an alleged plot to assassinate veteran Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Police sources said they had arrested Luis Posada Carriles and three of his Cuban-American colleagues at a hotel in central Panama City as a "precautionary measure" after Castro accused them of plotting to take his life.
Castro, in Panama for the opening of the Ibero-American summit on childhood, said earlier on Friday that "terrorists" armed by anti-communist Cuban Americans were planning to assassinate him.
"Terrorist elements organized, financed and led from the US by the Cuban American National Foundation [CANF] ... have been sent to Panama with the aim of eliminating me," he said.
"They are now in this city [Panama City], and have brought in arms and explosives," Castro, dressed in military fatigues, said.
The Miami-based CANF, the most militantly anti-Castro of Florida's numerous Cuban-American groups, dismissed the claims as the ravings of "an aged rock star ... [who] needs to attract attention somehow."
Castro singled-out Posada Carriles as the brains behind the alleged plot, accusing him of having made other attempts "against Cuban interests."
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