National Committee to Free the Cuban Five

U.S. House hearing focuses on Posada

by Pablo Bachelet
Nov. 16, 2007
Reprinted from The Miami Herald

Rep. William Delahunt at the hearing

Members of Congress on Thursday panned the Bush administration's handling of the case of anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles, wanted by Cuba and Venezuela in the 1976 bombing of a Havana airliner that killed 73 passengers and crew.

The hearing brought together Posada's attorney, Arturo Hernández, as well as journalists and investigators who have looked into the activities of Posada, now free and living in Miami.

The hearing was convened by Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight, and one of the sharpest critics of the Bush administration's policy on Cuba and Venezuela.

Both countries often cite the Posada case as an example of the Bush administration's double standard -- demanding international cooperation on terrorism but seemingly reluctant to press terrorism charges against Posada, presumably to avoid upsetting some Cuban exiles who consider him a hero.

Delahunt said there was "compelling evidence" implicating Posada in the airplane bombing and that he was "bewildered" by the administration's reluctance to invoke the Patriot Act and arrest Posada as a terrorist.

U.S. officials have said they cannot indict Posada for the airplane bombing because no U.S. citizens were involved and no U.S. assets were used.

Earlier this year, a judge in Texas ruled that Posada, a former CIA operative, cannot be sent back to Venezuela because he could be tortured there. Venezuela denies that.

He was arrested in Miami in 2005 and charged with immigration fraud, but U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone threw out the charges. The Justice Department is appealing that ruling.

Delahunt questioned Hernández over the Department of Justice's handling of the immigration case, asking how many witnesses had testified and the reliability of those who did.

Hernández said Posada considered himself a freedom fighter and said he had decided to testify on behalf of his client because there was a need "to counterbalance the rhetoric and often misinformation that has emanated from Cuba and Venezuela and their acolytes in our country."

"Mr. Posada Carriles is not and has never been a terrorist," he said. "His lifelong ambition has been to bring democracy and freedom to his place of birth."

He said most of the evidence in the airplane case, which includes declassified CIA and FBI documents, was more than three decades old and "based on dubious double hearsay from unidentified sources."

Freelance writer Blake Fleetwood testified about his six-hour interview with Posada and another alleged participant in the airplane attack, Orlando Bosch, in a Venezuelan prison in 1977, saying the two "proudly bragged of their complicity in hundreds of murders, bombings and assassinations."

He then faced a barrage of skeptical questions from the ranking Republican on the subcommittee, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, (Calif., who asked if the two had confessed to having been "personally involved" in killings of civilians. Fleetwood demurred, and agreed that they had not.

The subcommittee also took testimony from Peter Kornbluh, who heads the Cuba documentation project at George Washington University's National Security Archives. Kornbluh has successfully declassified CIA and FBI documents on Posada that suggest an involvement in the airline bombing.

Also testifying was Anne Louise Bardach, who interviewed Posada in 1998 and co-authored a story for The New York Times. She is fighting a subpoena by a federal grand jury in New Jersey investigating Posada's links to a string of bombings in Havana in 1997 that killed one Italian tourist.

She said that "if the government had been serious about criminally prosecuting Mr. Posada on the basis of the statements he made [to me] . . . it could have done so long ago."

For additional coverage of the hearing including video and transcripts of the testimony, click here

US congressman warns Cuban terror suspect above law

Nov. 16, 2007
Reprinted from AP

WASHINGTON: A U.S congressman on Thursday warned that the "disparity" in the favorable treatment of an anti-Castro militant could hinder international cooperation with the United States in the fight against terrorism.

U.S. Rep. William Delahunt told a congressional subcommittee that national security laws are being unfairly applied to favor Luis Posada Carriles, who is wanted in Cuba and Venezuela for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner.

Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat whose district has received subsidized heating oil from Venezuela, said he asked the U.S. Department of Justice why it failed to designate Posada Carriles a "terrorist" despite FBI and CIA documents linking him to the deadly airline bombing. He said he received no response.

"We must insist on answers about the disparity of treatment provided him" compared to other terrorism suspects, Delahunt said in a prepared statement. "We must demonstrate that we apply our laws fully and equally without regard to political ideology if we want to ensure international cooperation on terrorism."

Venezuela and Cuba link Posada Carriles, 79, to the 1976 bombing of a Cubana airlines plane that killed 73. Caracas has sought his extradition for months, and both nations accuse the U.S. harboring a terrorist and "hypocrisy" in its war on terrorism.

A former CIA operative and longtime adversary of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Posada Carriles who now lives in Miami. He entered the U.S. from Mexico in April 2005 and was detained on immigration charges.

The immigration case against Posada Carriles was dismissed in May after a U.S. District judge concluded that federal authorities used trickery, fraud and deceit in trying to pursue a criminal case against him. He was accused of lying on an application and during an interview to become a naturalized citizen.

This month U.S. prosecutors appealed the dismissal, arguing that the judge went too far in throwing out the entire case.