Posada back in El Paso for hearing
May 4, 2007
Reprinted from El Paso Times
Luis Posada Carriles, right, walked to Federal Court in Downtown El Paso with part of his legal team today. (Rudy Gutierrez / El Paso Times) |
Alleged Cuban terrorist Luis Posada Carriles returned to El Paso with part of his legal team this morning for a hearing.
Posada, 79, was released from jail April 19 after he posted bail at the El Paso federal courthouse, and immigration officials did not stand in his way.
Once he was released from jail he left El Paso for Miami by plane, accompanied by U.S. marshals.
The condition of his $250,000 bond, granted by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso, was that Posada be confined to his wife's Miami home with an electronic monitoring device.
ICE had a hold on Posada, meaning that immigration officers could have detained him as soon as he was released. They did not do so and did not explain why April 19.
In a written statement April 19, ICE officials said the release "does not constitute an admission to the United States and it does not accord him any legal status in the United States."
Posada is scheduled to go on trial May 11 on charges of naturalization fraud and making false statements on his application for citizenship. He allegedly said he entered the United States illegally through Brownsville, Texas, although he entered the country by sea in 2005.
Immigration officials cannot deport him because an immigration judge ruled he would be tortured in Cuba or Venezuela and because they cannot find a third country to take him in.
Posada, a former CIA operative, is wanted in Venezuela for allegedly masterminding the deadly bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976. He denies any involvement. |
