Sunday, April 10, 2011

Cuba anger at US Posada Carriles verdict

Luis Posada Carriles in El Paso, Texas, 8 April 2011Cuba and Venezuela have condemned a US court's decision to acquit a veteran anti-communist militant and former CIA agent, Luis Posada Carriles.

A Cuban official called the outcome a "shameful farce"; Venezuela said the US was protecting a known terrorist.

Mr Posada Carriles was cleared of US immigration charges on Friday.

Cuba and Venezuela accuse him of staging bomb attacks and plotting to kill Fidel Castro, and have demanded his extradition.

Mr Posada Carriles, 83, spent decades fighting to overthrow the communist government in Cuba and stop the spread of left-wing influence throughout Latin America.

He was on trial in Texas on charges of lying to immigration officials about how he entered the US and about his alleged involvement in bomb attacks in Havana in 1997 in which an Italian tourist was killed.

But a jury found him not guilty, ending a four-year effort by US federal prosecutors to convict him.

The head of Cuba's parliament, Ricardo Alarcon, told the Associated Press the federal judge in Texas had prevented jurors from seeing evidence that would have convinced them of his guilt.

"The US government is as much a liar as he is because it converted a killer who has been sought for decades into a simple old liar," he said.

The Venezuelan government expressed "indignation" at "an act of theatre" designed to "protect the terrorist Luis Posada Carriles".

It said it would renew its request to have Mr Posada Carriles extradited for his alleged role in the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1973, which killed 73 people.

The US has previously refused to send Mr Posada Carriles to Cuba or Venezuela, saying he might face torture. ...

via BBC News - Cuba anger at US Posada Carriles verdict.

1 comment:

Ann said...

From wiki -

Luis Posada or "Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles is a Cuban-born Venezuelan anti-communist terrorist backed by the United States."

Note, he is a U.S. produced "terrorist."

"A former CIA agent, Posada has been convicted in absentia of involvement in various terrorist attacks and plots in the Americas, including:

involvement in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people;

admitted involvement in a string of bombings in 1997 targeting fashionable Cuban hotels and nightspots [not military installations]

involvement in the Bay of Pigs invasion;

and involvement in the Iran-Contra affair.

In addition, he was jailed under accusations related to an assassination attempt on Fidel Castro in Panama in 2000, although he was later pardoned by Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso in the final days of her term.

In 2005, Posada was held by U.S. authorities in Texas on the charge of illegal presence on national territory before the charges were dismissed on May 8, 2007. On September 28, 2005 a U.S. immigration judge ruled that Posada cannot be deported, finding that he faces the threat of torture [please, note] in Venezuela. Likewise, the US government has refused to send Mr Posada Carriles to Cuba, saying he might face torture."

Who is torturing who in Guantánamo, Cuba?

"Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro has referred to him as "the Bin Laden of the Americas"

If he is "the Bin of the Americas," where is the Al Queda of the Americas? Hmmm ... I wonder, the CIA?