BY FRANCES ROBLES
frobles@herald.com

The Miami exiles arrested in Panama last month in an alleged assassination plot against Fidel Castro say they weren't at the Ibero-American Summit to kill the Cuban president, but there to help one of Cuba's top intelligence generals defect.

Four Cuban exiles, including three from Miami, were arrested Nov. 17 in Panama City, hours after Castro held a press conference saying his foes were hatching a plan to murder him. Longtime anti-Castro plotters Luis Posada Carriles, Pedro Remón, Guillermo Novo and Gaspar Jiménez have been charged with ``illicit association'' and possession of explosives.

Through their attorney, the men have denied any link to the 18 pounds of plastic explosives found in a car near Panama City's airport. On Thursday, Rogelio Cruz, the lawyer for the group, announced in Panama that the arrested men were framed -- set up by the very man they were there to rescue: top Cuban security officer Eduardo Delgado, who headed Cuba's main espionage agency for years.

``It was a trap,'' Cruz told The Herald.

He offered no proof of the allegation, and Cuban diplomats in Washington, D.C. could not be reached late Thursday to comment on it.

A Cuban exile in Miami close to Posada and aware of many of his activities said the lawyer's claim of a trap was bogus, likely concocted as an effort to justify the exiles' presence in Panama.

``It could be, but if we can show it's not a tale, then it's not a tale,'' Cruz said. ``There will be evidence.''

He declined to offer any.

If true, the defection would be a major blow to the Cuban government. Delgado was identified last year as the Cuban spy master who allegedly ran the plot to ambush two Brothers to the Rescue airplanes. He is the same intelligence veteran who was chief investigator in the notorious 1989 drug trafficking trial of Angola war hero Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa.

Miami developer Santiago Alvarez, identified by Cuban officials as one of the assassination plotters, said Delgado secretly began working with exile activists after the 1996 Ibero-American Summit in Chile. Earlier this year, he allegedly told them through intermediaries and emails that he planned to leave the communist island, but wanted to meet with a high-ranking exile he could trust.

Posada, mastermind of the string of 1997 bombings in Havana, sneaked into Panama to meet Delgado, Alvarez said.