Washington Continues its Tricks in the Luis Posada Carriles Case
by Roberto Perez Betancourt
Feb. 2, 2007
Reprinted from Cuban News Agency
The Bush administration continues with its shenanigans in the case of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles in a type of pettifogging game of someone that does not know its own laws in order to officially deny what the international community already knows: that he is an international terrorist, a long time employee of the CIA, who must be tried as an assassin.
With the basest cynicism, Homeland Security Department attempted to evade responsibility by affirming last Wednesday that they are not forced to justify the detention of Posada Carriles because the terrorist is under the custody of another agency, for a different reason.
The statement responds to a deposition by federal judge Phillip Martinez, who ordered in November 2006 that Homeland Security should certify before February 1st 2007 that the detention of Posada Carriles, accused only of illegally entering the US, answers to national security or be released.
Posada Carriles was arrested on May 17th, 2005, as an alleged illegal immigrant. The opinion of the Supreme Court prohibits the indefinite detention of foreigners with a final order of deportation, as in the case of the terrorist who has Venezuelan citizenship through naturalization.
Through this delaying stratagem, Homeland Security is avoiding the responsibility of agreeing to the petition of habeas corpus presented by the defence attorneys to release the terrorist. At the same time he continues to be protected by not recognizing him as such and avoids being extradited to Venezuela or being tried in the US for his serious crimes.
Law experts are surprised by the Homeland Security allegations when arguing that Posada Carriles stopped being under its jurisdiction after being prosecuted by the US Justice Department on January 11th of this year with seven legal charges for migratory fraud and false testimony, for which he can receive up to 40 years in prison.
The truth is that the US government, prevented from releasing Posada, continues to avoiding calling him what the press and international public opinion knows: Posada is an assassin with a number of pending accusations, among them having participated as the intellectual author of the bombing of a Cubana airliner on October 6th, 1976 killing the 73 people on board.
For this crime, the international terrorist was serving time in prison in Venezuela when he escaped from that South American country in complicity with anti Cuban elements based in Miami.
The Venezuelan government formally requested his extradition to try him for that criminal act in compliance with the validity of the extradition treaty signed by the US, but the Bush administration is determined to protect the criminal.
It is obvious that Washington fears the revelations that Posada Carriles can disclose in a trial for terrorist activities, as he served as a CIA agent and carried out missions in the so called dirty war to destabilize the Nicaraguan government.
The next chapter of this story should be aired on February 15th, the date on which a hearing is scheduled over his request for bail.
In this maze of legal shenanigans, the official intention to-reopen the escape door from justice for the assassin cannot be ruled out, as was the case when he was in Venezuela and Panama. But we must not forget that with each new trick uncovered, the W. Bush administration loses more credibility with the international community.
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