New Posada Indictment Opens Old Wounds
by Jim DeFede
Apr. 9, 2009
Reprinted from CBS4 Miami
In July 2005, I travelled to Havana to cover what the Cuban government described as an international conference on terrorism. In reality, it was a three-day state sponsored harangue against the aging anti-Castro militant, Luis Posada Carriles.
Cuba has long accused Posada of masterminding the 1976 bombing of a civilian airliner that killed 73 people, including members of Cuba's national fencing team.
Posada was charged and acquitted of the bombings in Venezuela. But while his trial was being reviewed by an appeals court, Posada escaped from prison.
Venezuela said their prosecution was undermined by the United States, which refused to provide information it had on Posada, who had been trained in explosives while he worked for the CIA. Venezuela continues to seek Posada's extradition.
While a fugitive, Posada built a new network based out of Central America and financed by Cuban Americans in Florida and New Jersey. In the mid-Nineties he allegedly orchestrated a series of Havana hotel and nightclub bombings that killed an Italian tourist, Fabio di Celmo.
A lengthy Herald investigation tied Posada to the hotel bombings and in 1998 Posada bragged about the attacks to The New York Times, saying he had a "clear conscience" about what he ordered. As to the death of di Celmo, Posada was unapologetic. "I sleep like a baby," Posada told the Times.
Seven years later in Havana, I met di Celmo's father where it was clear. Posada's words still enraged him.
"Posada said he slept like a baby after he killed my son," Giustino di Celmo told me. "But if I ever have a chance to put my hands on him, I'll cut him to pieces."
The 81-year-old Posada was then – and still is today – a national obsession in Cuba. Fidel Castro used the former CIA trained operative as a symbol of the worst and most loathsome aspects of the exile community. In 2005, I listened as Castro railed against Posada – and by extension the United States – for more than an hour.
Posters equating Posada with Hitler were plastered on the roads leading to El Palacio de Convenciones where the conference was held. A few weeks earlier, 100,000 demonstrators lined up in front of the U.S. Interest Section in Havana to demand Posada's extradition to Cuba.
Away from the day-to-day events of the conference, I spoke to Cubans on the street, inside parks and waiting at bus stops. They too saw Posada as a venal figure who rationalized his acts of violence against innocent civilians in the name of some greater good.
In other words, they saw him as a terrorist and a murderer.
Even critics of the Castro regime found Posada despicable. Just as troubling, they complained that the U.S. government's refusal to investigate Posada for the bombings was giving the Cuban government the type of propaganda victory it relishes. "Every time Castro can find an excuse to attack the United States, he uses it in order to distract from the problems we have here," one dissident on the island told me. "The United States has to find a way out of this."
This week, for the first time, the United States government – and not just the Cuban government – has accused Posada of being involved in the hotel bombings. The accusation was included in a new federal indictment against Posada charging him with lying about the bombings when he recently applied to become a naturalized citizen.
The 11-count indictment out of El Paso, Texas, claims Posada lied about "soliciting other individuals to carry out bombings in Cuba." The new indictment supersedes an earlier indictment which accused of lying to immigration officials about how he entered the country. Posada said he snuck across the border with Mexico. Immigration officials believe he was brought into Miami by boat.
This week's indictment restates the original charges against Posada and adds the additional charge of him lying about his role in the hotel bombings.
Posada has not been formally charged with the bombings, although newspaper reports say his involvement is being investigated by a grand jury in New Jersey. Posada allegedly raised much of the money for the bombing campaign from wealthy Cuban Americans in Union City, New Jersey, as well as Miami.
Despite taped interviews with the New York Times that stretched over three days, Posada now denies being responsible for the bombings and claims he was misquoted by the paper.
In recent years, federal agents from Miami have also been to Cuba to review Cuban government files and to interview possible witnesses against Posada, including the two men who were arrested for carrying out the bombings.
During my trip to Cuba in 2005, I interviewed both of the bombers, Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon and Otto Rene Rodriguez Llerena. They both had been sentenced to death by the Cuban government and were being held at Guanajay Prison in Havana.
Cruz Leon told me he never met Posada but instead was recruited for the bombings by a fellow Salvadoran by the name of Francisco Chavez Abarca. A Herald investigation found that Chavez worked for Posada.
Cruz Leon told me he was paid approximately $2,000 for each of the bombings. He was provided a list of hotels and nightclubs to attack.
The first set of bombs went off through the city in July 1997. "I thought that I had accomplished a heroic mission," Cruz Leon said. "I thought it was an action against evil."
He tried to place the bombs in areas where no one would be hurt, he said. A few weeks later he planted the second string of bombs, including one at the Copacabana. It was the Copa blast that killed di Celmo.
After Cruz Leon was arrested, Posada tried to distance himself from the Salvadoran, by dismissively saying Cruz Leon felt no sympathy for him because he wasn't Cuban.
Cruz Leon took offense to Posada's words, telling me: "I would say to him that he should look backwards and see how much damage he has done and to stop. He should pay the same way I am paying for the death I caused."
Cruz Leon went on to say: "I don't sleep like a baby, you can be sure of that. I know that my hands are full of blood."
The other person arrested in Cuba for the bombings, Rodriguez Llerena, planted one bomb in 1997 and was caught smuggling C-4 explosives into Cuba in June 1998.
In a separate interview, he said it was Posada – whom he met while Posada was hiding in El Salvador – who hired him to plant the bomb and smuggle in the explosives. "I cannot say if he is a freedom fighter or a terrorist," Rodriguez Llerena said. "In my personal case, I am angry because whether he is a freedom fighter or not, he used me. My mistake was letting him use me."
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