by Tamara Pearson
July 9, 2010
Reprinted from Venezuelanalysis

Chávez Abarca after his arrest.

Merida, July 8th, 2010 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Francisco Chavez Abarca, who was recently extradited to Cuba, confessed to having been contracted by Luis Posada Carriles to carry out destabilising acts in Venezuela in the lead-up to the September national assembly elections.

Chavez Abarca, on arriving at Caracas international airport last Thursday, was transported to the SEBIN (Bolivarian Intelligence Service) headquarters for questioning.

Footage obtained by Telesur shows Chavez Abarca’s arrival at the airport then it shows him being led away by airport officials after his passport was discovered to be false and that there was an Interpol code red on him by Cuba.

Telesur footage also shows the suspect responding to questions by SEBIN. When asked who was his superior, Chavez Abarca replied, “Luis Posda Carriles.”

“Where does he give orders from? Where is he?” The officer asked.

“I don’t know because I haven’t talked with him since ’97.”

“How do you receive instructions?”

“Through Daniel.”

Daniel Barrundia, according to Radio Mundial, is connected to the Counter-revolutionary Cuban-American Foundation, located in Miami.

The officer then asked Chavez Abarca how he knew there was contact between Barrundia and Posada, and Chavez Abarca responded, “I know how he talks, I know how he acts, I know how he thinks. I know what he could say and what he wouldn’t.”

Chavez Abarca allegedly came to Venezuela to study what disturbance he could cause in order to sabotage the government’s chances in September’s parliamentary elections. In response to a question about what sort of actions he was planning, he said, “Riots. Riots... tire burning... riots in the street...the other thing that could be done is attack one political party... so the (pro-Chavez) parties start fighting.”

According to the SEBIN, Chavez Abarca received his instructions via email, which suggested meeting three people, two of them Venezuelans, in a restaurant near the airport.

Finally, Chavez Abarca said his fee for the work was up to him.

Venezuelan legislator Juan Mendoza and other Venezuelan authorities have publically accused Chavez Abarca of wanting to commit a “wave of terrorist attempts” in Venezuela and he also criticised the lack of coverage of the issue by the private Venezuelan press, saying it was suspicious.

However, the private media have given a lot of coverage to comments by Chavez Abarca’s wife, Karla Trigueros, who accused Cuba and Venezuelan intelligence agencies of forcefully bringing her husband to Venezuela from Guatemala as part of a “secret operation”.

Venezuela deported Chavez Abarca to Cuba yesterday, but said they would continue investigating the case, to discover who he had been planning on working with.

Retired Cuban general, Fabian Escalante, said the Venezuelan government’s decision to extradite Chavez Abarca was positive and elaborated, “This is a character who has been trained by the best schools of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and by the Bin Laden of the Western Hemisphere, Luis Posada Carriles, who is guilty of the attacks against Cuban tourist installations in 1997.”

Escalante said that Chavez Abarca would be subject to a “fair and transparent” trial in Cuba.

After Chavez Abarca was deported, minister for the interior and justice affairs, Tarek El Aissami, told the media that Venezuela maintains a serious struggle against terrorism. “It’s a commitment ...to peace, to ...the real struggle against criminal organisations dedicated to killing, to creating panic among our peoples,” said El Aissami.

According to Mendoza, Chavez Abarca, a Salvadoran citizen, was the “head of organised crime in El Salvador”. In the 1990s he was allegedly involved in drug trafficking, arms sales, and counterfeiting. In April 1997 he was accused of setting bombs off in a hotel in Havana, on two separate occasions. He also apparently set off a bomb in Mexico that year and contracted a mercenary, Ernesto Cruz Leon, to carry out terrorist missions in Cuba. Cruz Leon later confessed to setting off bombs in hotels in Cuba, which resulted in the death of one Italian.

Posada Carriles is a nationalized Venezuelan who is wanted for his responsibility for the attack on a Cuban plane in 1976 that left 73 passengers dead. He is currently in Miami where he is being protected by the U.S government, which, going against international law, refuses to extradite him.

A key opposition strategy in recent years before elections has been to cause violent riots, as well as scarcity of certain food items, combined with media campaigns to create a sense of dissatisfaction and insecurity among the Venezuelan population.

Also on Tuesday, president Hugo Chavez announced that alleged drug trafficker Carlos Renteria, who is wanted in Colombia, had been captured by Venezuelan authorities the day before. Renteria is also wanted in the United States for conspiring to import, possess, and distribute cocaine, El Correo Del Orinoco reported.

According to El Espectador, the US state department is offering 5 million for his capture, and on Tuesday Chavez announced that Renteria will be extradited to the U.S.

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by Luis Chirino
July 7, 2010
Reprinted from ACN

TVenezuela´s President Hugo Chavez announced on Tuesday that Salvadorian terrorist Francisco Chavez Abarca will be extradited to Cuba over the next few hours. The island is requesting his extradition under Red Code for his responsibility in the execution of terrorist attacks in Havana.

“Over the next few hours he (Chavez Abarca) will be sent to Cuba by means of Interpol,” said Chavez during the 8 th Venezuela-Ecuador Presidential Meeting, la radio del Sur webpage reported.

Chavez Abarca was imprisoned in El Salvador for two years for his leadership of a gang dedicated to stealing cars, but the Salvadorian justice did not judge him for other international crimes.

Abarca and 21 members of his gang were arrested for charges of criminal deception and theft of vehicles. Authorities assured that the gang was one of the main structures of organized crime dedicated to stealing vehicles at national level and in Central America.

But a judge released Chavez Abarca on October 28, 2007 despite his crimes. However, Abarca did not have to respond for his role as main accomplice of Luis Posada Carriles in a campaign against Cuba, which was not referred to at the Salvadorian court of justice despite repeated denunciations in that respect.

In the 1990s, Chavez Abarca was accused of drug trafficking, and of selling fire weapons and fake money in Guatemala. He used false names such as Manuel Gonzalez, Roberto Solorzano and William Gonzalez, and he made three brief trips to Cuba in April and May of 1997 to carry out terrorist attacks.

In 1997, the terrorist planted and activated a 600-gram C-4 bomb that damaged the restrooms of the Ache disco at the Melia Cohiba Hotel, in Havana, Cuba on April 12 that year. On April 30th a 401-gram C-4 bomb was deactivated after the Salvadorian terrorist had planted it in a flower pot on the 15th floor of the Melia Cohiba Hotel.

On May 24, while Chavez Abarca was staying in Mexico, another bomb blast occurred at the entrance of the office of Cuba´s Cubanacan Corporation in that country. Also in 1997, under the indications of Posada Carriles, Francisco Chavez Abarca hired mercenary Rene Cruz Leon and gave him the mission of carrying out terrorist actions in Cuba. Later, Cruz Leon made two trips to Cuba and activated bombs in Cuban hotels; one of those bombs killed young Italian tourist Fabio di Celmo on September 4, 1997.

International and confessed terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, accused of having masterminded the bombing of a Cuban airplane in mid air, which killed all 73 people on board in 1976, enjoys freedom in Miami, the United States, despite the fact that Venezuela has requested his extradition in several occasions.

Hugo Chavez also confirmed the arrest in Caracas of Colombian drug capo Carlos Renteria, who will be extradited to the United States. “He is Colombian but the United States wants it,” said Chavez in a brief comment on the case. The US State Department was offering a 5-million-dollar reward for Carlos Alberto Renteria.

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July 7, 2010
Reprinted from Reuters

HAVANA (Reuters) - A Salvadorean man arrested in Venezuela last week was flown to Cuba on Wednesday to face charges that he carried out bombings of Cuban hotels in 1997.

Cuban television showed a disheveled, manacled Francisco Chavez Abarca emerging from a plane at the Havana airport where he was met by Cuban authorities.

A statement from Cuba's Foreign Ministry said Chavez would undergo investigation for his part in the bombings, one of which killed an Italian tourist.

He is accused of being a member of an anti-communist group trained and directed by Cuban exile and former CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles.

Venezuelan authorities detained him at the Caracas airport on Thursday under an Interpol arrest warrant requested by Cuba,

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said.

He was in Venezuela to commit disruptive acts before legislative elections in September, officials said.

Posada Carriles, who lives in Miami, is wanted in Cuba and Venezuela for supposedly masterminding the bombing of a Cubana Airlines jet that killed 73 people, as well as involvement in the hotel bombings, which were aimed at destabilizing Cuba and scaring away tourists.

He was convicted of the plane bombing in Venezuela, but escaped from prison in 1985.

Cuba and Venezuela have repeatedly demanded his extradition from the United States, without success.

Posada Carriles was arrested in the United States in 2005 on immigration charges, but is out of jail awaiting trial next January in El Paso, Texas.

 

 

por Jean Guy Allard
4 de julio de 2010
Tomado de Aporrea.org

Para la familia de Fabio Di Celmo, víctima de la campaña de terrorismo desencadenada en 1997 por Luis Posada Carriles, el arresto en Venezuela del brazo derecho del terrorista, Francisco “El Panzón” Chávez Abarca, constituye “un gran paso para obtener justicia”.

“Ahora, mientras los responsables de haber ejecutado la orden de cometer actos de terrorismo contra Cuba en 1997 están encarcelados, lo que queda por resolver es el caso del cerebro de la operación, Luis Posada Carriles, protegido por Estados Unidos”, declaró en entrevista Livio Di Celmo, desde Canadá.

El 4 de septiembre de 1997, Fabio Di Celmo fue víctima de un atentado en el hotel Copacabana, de La Habana. Arrestado ese mismo día, Raúl Ernesto Cruz León, un mercenario salvadoreño, reconoció que había instalado la bomba, y que había sido reclutado el 12 de junio de 1997 y luego entrenado por Chávez Abarca, bajo orientación de Luis Posada Carriles.

“Evidentemente, los que financiaron estos atentados de 1997 tendrán también que ser arrestados y llevados ante los tribunales”, añadió el portavoz de la familia Di Celmo, refiriéndose a los directivos de la Fundación Nacional Cubano Americana, organización de Miami creada hace décadas por la CIA.

“Gracias al compromiso de las autoridades de Venezuela, “El Panzón” Chávez Abarca ha sido interceptado. Creo profundamente que esto resulta del espíritu revolucionario del pueblo venezolano y del personal presente en el aeropuerto como de su actual líder que esto se produjo”, afirmó Di Celmo.

“Hubiera sido en un país bajo influencia del imperialismo, este terrorista no hubiera sido arrestado”, subrayó al afirmar que quedaba mucho por hacer.

“¿Permitirá la captura de “El Panzón” y el esclarecimiento de su relación con Posada, identificar a los en el Gobierno de Estados Unidos apoyan a tales terroristas?”, preguntó el hermano de Fabio Di Celmo.

“¿Cuando serán liberados los Cinco cubanos presos en cárceles de Estados Unidos por haber infiltrado a organizaciones terroristas de Miami? Cuando se dará cuenta el pueblo norteamericano del lado diabólico de sus elites del poder?”, concluyó.

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Chávez Abarca confesó haber sido contratado por Posada Carriles

Trasladado a Cuba el terrorista Francisco Antonio Chávez Abarca