Cuba Urges USA to Rectify Acquittal of Terrorist.

Self-confessed terrorist Posada Carriles

.Cuba has called upon the U.S. government to rectify the acquittal of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles on charges of immigration fraud in an El Paso, Texas court, after a trial described as a farce.

  Washington is familiar with Posada Carriles’s participation in the mid-flight explosion of a Cuban airliner in 1976 off the coasts of Barbados, in bomb attacks on Havana tourist facilities in the 1990s, and in plans to assassinate the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, according to a statement from the Cuban Foreign Ministry.

The trial of the former CIA agent on immigration charges instead of terrorism is an insult to the Cuban people and the bereaved families of the victims of this self-confessed terrorist.

The note termed shameful what occurred in El Paso, as it contradicts the anti-terrorist policy the U.S. government claims to have, using it as a pretext for military intervention in other nations that has cost thousands of lives.

73 passengers were murdered when Cubana Flight 455was blown out of the sky

And it asks if the U.S. government will be capable of putting Posada on trial again, but this time for terrorism, or extraditing him to Venezuela, a country that has made that request for the last five years.

The United States is legally obliged to extradite the terrorist because it is a signatory to international conventions, and by virtue of UN Security Council resolution 1373/2001, the statement says.

What is most ironic is that while Posada Carriles is exonerated, five Cuban antiterrorists are currently serving unjust sentences in U.S. prisons for gathering information about actions by Cuban-born terrorists who, such as Posada Carriles, freely walk the streets of Miami with impunity, the statement said.
(Prensa Latina)

Posada Carrilles Acquitted of All Charges

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A US court which reserves the right to publish a list labelling nations as "sponsors of terrorism" declared international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles innocent on 11 charges of perjury, fraud and obstruction of justice during a trial before a jury in El Paso, Texas yesterday – a ruling which is unappeasable .

The jury, made up of seven women and five men, arrived at a verdict following a mere three hours of deliberations. The jury had been previously coached by Judge Kathleen Cardone – appointed by George W. Bush – who once again presides over proceedings which culminate with the acquittal of Posada Carriles.

"Every time a jury reviews a case, we cannot predict what it will decide, but we respect the jury's decision," Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Reardon affirmed. Reardon, attached to the Department of Justice's Counter-terrorism Section, was curiously deployed from Washington, while the government still refuses to acknowledge that Posada Carriles is a terrorist and to try him on such grounds, as per the international conventions the country has ratified.

Posada is still wanted by Venezuelan authorities on 73 charges of homicide since he re-appeared in Miami in 2005.

Upon acquitting Posada, the jury refused to acknowledge his illegal entry into the United States via the Miami River, aboard the Santrina shrimp boat – despite all of the evidence presented – and opted to believe the "coyote" tale spun by the accused.

It also implicitly refuses to recognize Posada's involvement in the bombings perpetrated in Cuba in 1997, which resulted in the death of young Italian tourist Fabio di Celmo.

A Batista police force collaborator, Posada was recruited by the CIA upon his arrival in the United States and incorporated into Operation 40, aimed at murdering supporters of the revolution during the Bay of Pigs invasion.

The CIA also recruited and trained him to conduct repressive campaigns in Venezuela, where he led the deadly DISIP "cleaning" squad operations, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, where he was entrusted similar tasks.

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He was detained in Venezuela and charged with masterminding the bombing of a Cuban commercial airliner in 1976, which resulted in the deaths of 73 people. Posada escaped from prison with CIA help and was tasked with heading a drug and weapons trafficking operation, controlled from the Ilopango base in El Salvador.

In November of 2000, Posada was arrested in Panama following an attempt to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro during the Latin American Summit. He was sentenced to eight years in prison for terrorism. He was released in 2004 on a pardon granted by President Mireya Moscoso, then under pressure from the Cuban American terrorist organization and its protectors in Washington and Miami.

El Paso Diary: The Posada Trial from the start or  the last day

Source
By Jean-Guy Allard

Posada faces (minor) charges

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Victims of Cabaña flight 455

Today (Monday  Jan. 10th )  in El Paso, Texas, a U.S. government farce will take place with the opening of the trial of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles in federal district court. Instead of facing charges of premeditated murder—for the bombing deaths of 73 people who died in a Cuban airliner on Oct. 6, 1976, and other crimes—Posada will only be tried for perjury and immigration
fraud.

It is widely known that Posada is responsible for the bombing of Cabaña Airlines flight 455 in 1976, which killed 73 passengers and crew members. In 1997, Posada directed a series of bombings in Havana hotels by hiring Central American mercenaries to plant the bombs. The perjury and immigration fraud charges are related to Posada’s illegal and secret entry into the United States in late March 2005, and false statements that he made to U.S. immigration officials.

In a 2006 interview with U.S. immigration, he was asked whether he had a role in procuring the help of mercenaries who planted bombs in Havana hotels in the summer of 1997. In one of those bombings, an Italian tourist, Fabio Di Celmo, was killed when shrapnel struck him in the lobby of the Copacabana Hotel in Havana on Sept. 4, 1997.

A proud, confessed killer

In a July 13, 1998 New York Times interview with journalist Ann Louise Bardach, Posada boasted of his directing role in those bombings. He also gave the names of his financiers in the Cuban American National Foundation. Posada notoriously told Bardach about Di Celmo’s murder, “I sleep like a baby … That Italian was sitting in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Self-confessed terrorist Luis Posada Carriles

Despite Posada’s admission to Bardach over the murder of Di Celmo, U.S. prosecutors are only using that evidence to prove that he made false statements to them. A twice-convened Newark, N.J., grand jury’s evidence of funds that were wired to Posada — for the hotel bombs he produced — will also be presented in El Paso. But again, only for the perjury charge.

By trying Posada for perjury and fraud, Washington is hoping that it will escape worldwide condemnation for its refusal to have Posada face real justice and prosecution for his terrorist murders. The U.S. government is fully aware of his murderous crimes because he carried them out in various Latin American countries on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The only reason Posada is even in court on Jan. 10th is due to national and international outrage over the impunity and freedom he continues to enjoy in Miami, where he walks the streets a free man.

This is why, as Posada is in the docket for charges that will only yield a minor sentence if he is convicted, activists will be outside the courtroom in El Paso to expose his real crimes of terror to the world.

As José Pertierra, Venezuela’s attorney in the extradition matter, has explained, Washington’s prosecution of Posada raises many doubts about the government’s real intent.

Pertierra says: “The real purpose of the pending trial in El Paso is to hamper the extradition request to Caracas, keep Posada on the street, and save the U.S. government a full trial that would place it next to the terrorist, on the defendant’s bench. That is why the strategy is to delay the process.”

People's Tribunal deals with the real issues 

Luis Posada is a former CIA Asset
click

While Posada faces minor charges in federal court, he was tried by a “People’s Tribunal”  yesterday (Jan. 9th )  in El Paso.

The “People’s Tribunal,” hosted by the Unitarian Universalist Community of El Paso, 4425 Byron St., El Paso,” will hear the charges of terrorism against Posada and his accomplices. The U.S. government’s support for the Miami terrorists will also be on trial.

Participants in the People's Tribunal included:

• Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General  
• Jose Pertierra, Venezuela's attorney for the extradition order of Posada  
• Keith Bolender, author of "Voices From the Other Side: An Oral History of Terrorism Against Cuba,"  (hear an interview with Keith Bolender here)
• Gloria La Riva, coordinator, National Committee to Free the Cuban Five 
• Brian Becker, National Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition  
• Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Co-founder, Partnership for Civil Justice Fund

We’ll bring you the Tribunal’s results 

as soon as they are available.

Also See
Excerpts from trial of Salvadoran terrorist shown 'soon' in Cuban TV special

Posada Carriles’ Trial to Include Evidences of Terrorism against Cuba

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The evidence collected by Cuban authorities and the FBI on Luis Posada Carriles’s role in the bomb attacks carried out in Havana will be included in the next trial of this terrorist, reports ACN.

According to Cubadebate, it will be the first time that a recorded interview with Posada and a journalist from The New York Times, in which he admits that he planned the attacks of 1997 to hotels in Havana, will be presented before a jury.

Cubadebate adds that at the trial, which is scheduled for January 10, 2011, in El Paso, Texas, the intention is not to demonstrate he is a terrorist but a liar, who committed fraud to the US migratory authorities when he entered the country.

According to some information published in the New Herald, this terrorist arrived in the United States five years ago, and during this time he has been tried for minor crimes so as to delay his extradition to Venezuela.

Fighting terrorism and war

click to view

Since 2005 Venezuela demanded his extradition for the blowing-up of a civil Cuban airplane in which 73 people died.

On the Texas trial, Posada is accused of lying in a routine interview with the US migratory authorities who questioned him about his role on the attacks in Havana that killed Italian tourist Fabio di Celmo.

Judge Kathleen Cardone affirmed that she decided to allow the presentation of the five-hour recordings by journalist Ann Louise Bardach because she was trustworthy taking into account she testified on a closed-door hearing on November 15, on her interview with the accused and on the management of the tapes with The New York Times.

As said by The New Herald, attorneys from the Justice Department are planning to present in the trial more than 3 500 pages of official documents from Cuba and Guatemala related to the attacks.

The prosecution said that these documents detail the attacks in Havana, those who planned them and the explosive devices used. The documents focus on the arrests, the suspects, the witnesses and the fake Guatemalan passport which was allegedly used by Posada.

The attorneys from the Justice Department will also use evidence from the FBI, which were revised by a federal instruction jury in New Jersey.

FBI agents collected documents showing money transferences of nearly 19 000 US dollars from New Jersey to Posada in El Salvador and Guatemala between October 1996 and January 1998. The FBI assumes that the money was used to finance the attacks.

However, the judged blocked hundreds of documents on the links between Posada and the CIA for more than 25 years, as requested by the prosecution. 

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Summary of major acts of terrorism against Cuba

1959 - 1997 - 1990 - 2000

Source

El arca cubana: a film about terrorism

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The documentary ‘El arca cubana’ (The Cuban Ark), by Cuban filmmaker Ramon Luis Perez Martinez which takes a look at the history of aggressions and terrorist actions carried out against Cuba by mercenaries and the US government.

There have been more than 3 terrorist attacks carried out against Cuba among them  the Bay of Pigs invasion, Operation Peter Pan, which "stole" more than 14 thousand Cuban children, the sabotage of the Literacy Campaign in 1961, the Cuban Adjustment Act, which has claimed so many lives at sea and that it violates the migration accords, the criminal unleashing of Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever which  killed 101 children, and the 1976, bombing of a civilian airplane, killing all on board.

> Interview with Ramon Luis Perez Martinez

> View Trailer

Also see
“He said, I am totally responsible for all of those acts and others that will come”

a Democracy Now interview with Ricardo Alarcón

34 Years of Impunity

Family members of the victims of the Barbados's Crime

On October 6, 1976 a civilian Cuban airliner took off from the coast of Barbados towards Cuba. Among the 73 passengers on board was the Cuban Junior Fencing team who were proudly returning to their island with gold medals. Along with them were 11 humble students from Guyana who were to begin studying in Cuba, five passengers of the Democratic Republic of Korea, among them a young girl. There were 57 Cuban passengers and flight crew on that plane. But flight 455 never made it to its destination. Its 73 passengers died a horrible death when a bomb, ordered to be placed in the plane by the international terrorists Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, blew up in mid air.

For the last 5 years the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has officially demanded from the United States the extradition of the criminal Posada Carriles who has been a fugitive from justice for the plane bombing and for other crimes committed in that country. After 34 years since that criminal act 73 families and an entire people continue to demand justice.

The Cuban government has declared October 6, the "Day of the Victims of State Terrorism". This declaration by Cuban President Raul Castro is an unconditional statement concerning this open wound of this small island nation as well as a symbol of the impunity of the US and the unwavering efforts of Cuba to fight terrorism.

The Committee of the Family of the Victims of the Barbados Crime, has sent an open letter to Obama demanding a trial and punishment to Posada and for the freedom of the Cuban 5.

Source

Also see

Fifty years of US terrorism against Cuba

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The Very Dark Side of U.S. History