Guillermo Novo

Guillermo Novo  (assassin)
Born	1940
Cuban exile connected to a long string of assassinations

Guillermo Novo Sampol was an exile-Cuban sworn enemy of Fidel Castro who was connected to a long list of assassinations.

Activities

Guillermo Novo was born in Cuba. An opponent of Fidel Castro, Novo moved to the United States where he soon became associated with a long string of violent actions.

According to Marita Lorenz, Novo became involved with Operation 40, a CIA assassination squad. Lorenz pointed out that a few days before the assassination of John F. Kennedy, a group including Novo, Orlando Bosch,Frank Sturgis, Ignacio Novo and Pedro Diaz Lanz, travelled to Dallas. She also claimed that he was at a motel in Dallas when Kennedy's murder was planned.

In 1964 Novo bought a bazooka for $35 in an Eighth Avenue shop and rebuilt it. He planned to use it to kill Che Guevera, who was scheduled to address the UN General Assembly. He fired the shell from the East River waterfront in Long Island, facing the UN building across the river. According to the New York Times the shell "landed in the East River about 200 yards short of the 38-story United Nations Secretariat building, sending up a 15-foot geyser of water."

In addition to his collaboration with the CIA, Novo was "one of the leading Cuban exiles who collaborated with the Chilean secret police, DINA, in the mid-1970s to conduct terrorist operations outside of Chile's borders".

In 1974, he was convicted of plotting to blow up a Cuban ship anchored in Montreal, Canada. After violating the terms of his probation he was returned to jail, but during his period of freedom, he was involved in the bomb assassination of former Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier and his assistant Ronni K. Moffitt in Washington DC. He told a grand jury that he knew nothing about crimes for which his younger brother and his friend Alvin Ross Diaz were convicted. In 1981, an US appeals court reversed on procedural grounds his conviction for eight counts of conspiracy to assassinate Letelier.

FBI Agents Robert Scherrer and Carter Cornick claimed that Novo played a key role in the murder of fellow anti-Castro exile Roland Masferrer in Miami on 31st October, 1975.

Scherrer claimed that "he tried to finance through drug dealing. But we could never make a charge stick."

The following year Novo was suspected of being involved with Luis Posada, Orlando Bosch, Herman Ricardo and Freddy Lugo in the Cubana Airlines plane that exploded killing all 73 people aboard.

In 1981, he allegedly put out a "hit" on US author Saul Landau.

Novo continued to take part in terrorist attacks on Cuba. In 2000 Novo and three colleagues, Luis Posada, Gaspar Jiménez and Pedro Remón, were arrested and imprisoned after trying to assassinate Fidel Castro at the University of Panama.

In August, 2004, President Mireyas Moscoso of Panama, pardoned Novo, Posada, Jiménez and Remón for their role in attempting to assassinate Castro. The U.S. government denied charges in the Cuban and Panamanian media that it brought pressure on Moscoso to grant the pardons.

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