"I'll tell you one thing, the bombs in hotels were very small, just intended to break windows and cause minor damage, " Posada said.

The Italian man who was killed "was standing 40 meters away and he was hit by a little splinter in the neck, " he said. "It was bad luck that it happened. But it was just a little wound. I suspect that Cuba killed the Italian because he wasn't going to die from that little wound."

Homeland security officials have said they are not actively looking for Posada because there are no warrants for his arrest in the United States. They have even expressed doubts, as recently as Friday, that Posada is in the country.

SNEAKING INTO U.S.

Because of his past, Posada and his supporters took extraordinary measures to sneak him into the country. Since his arrival, his attorney, Eduardo Soto, has said that his client crossed the Mexican border but has refused to provide details.

Castro has repeatedly claimed that Miami developer Santiago Alvarez, a friend and benefactor to Posada, brought him to Miami aboard his remodeled shrimp boat, Santrina, which is now anchored in the Miami River.

Castro has cited Santrina's voyage to the Mexican resort of Isla Mujeres, near Cancún in mid-March, when the boat ran aground outside the harbor. Alvarez acknowledged that he was in Isla Mujeres in mid-March but said the trip was a maiden voyage for the overhauled boat and denied smuggling Posada to Miami on it.

Two other men who accompanied Alvarez on the trip, José Pujol and Osvaldo Mitat, also told The Herald that they did not bring Posada to Miami on the Santrina.

Posada was released in August from a Panama prison after then-President Mireya Moscoso pardoned him in connection with an alleged plot to kill Castro in 2000. Posada said he flew on a private jet to Honduras, where a fellow exile sheltered him amid a national police search. He eventually made it to Guatemala - where he had a brush with death in 1990, when hit men fired more than 40 bullets into his car.

Posada said that sometime earlier this year, a friend drove him across the border into Belize and then into the Cancún area of Mexico.

That was around the same time that the Santrina was docked at Isla Mujeres. Posada declined to say whether he met Alvarez there.

Posada said he crossed the Texas border in a vehicle with a migrant smuggler at Brownsville. He and the smuggler made their way to Houston, he said.

Posada said his contacts had arranged to withhold half the smuggler's fee until they received a photograph of Posada standing at a Houston Greyhound station.

The 25 hours he spent on the bus, were terrible, he said, because he found himself surrounded by men in "camisetas" (undershirts), hauling boxes and speaking rough English that he didn't understand. Seeking better cover, he said he befriended and sat with a group of Mexicans, at one point buying them plates of chicken and rice.

The trip was uneventful until the bus pulled into Fort Lauderdale early one morning in late March, he said.

"Now comes the funny part, " Posada recalled. It was 1:30 a.m. and only about a dozen people remained on the bus. Suddenly, immigration officers boarded the Greyhound for a routine spot check for undocumented foreign nationals, recalled Posada - who had no papers.

The first ones busted were his Mexican friends, he said. Then, according to Posada, one of the officers approached him. He said he kept his cool.