[Shef2venez] Terrorist in Miami - 2 articles from FT

[John Smith]

Accused Cuban bomber arrested by US 
By Edward Alden in Washington and Andy Webb-Vidal in Caracas
FT: May 17 2005 

US authorities on Tuesday detained Luis Posada Carriles in Miami, setting up
a confrontation with Cuba and Venezuela over whether the alleged perpetrator
of a 1976 aircraft bombing should be deported on terrorism-related charges.


US Customs and Immigration (ICE) officials said 77-year-old Mr Posada had
been arrested “pending review of his immigration status”. Under normal
procedures, authorities would have 48 hours to decide whether to charge him
with an immigration-related offence or seek his deportation.

Mr Posada, a Cuban exile and long-time foe of Fidel Castro, Cuba's
president, is suspected of involvement in the bombing of a Cuban airline
that killed 73 passengers and crew. Mr Castro has accused Washington of
betraying its own anti-terror stance by harbouring a fugitive wanted in Cuba
and Venezuela on terrorism charges.

US officials had claimed they were unaware of Mr Posada's whereabouts, but
he surfaced prominently on Tuesday in an interview in the Miami Herald. In
the interview, he boasted that “now I hide a lot less. People have
recognised me in the market, at the doctor's office.” He repeated claims
that he had played no role in the airline bombing, though in the past he has
admitted organising other attacks on Cuban targets.

The Herald reported on its web site that Mr Posada was arrested after
telling journalists in Miami on Tuesday morning that he was prepared to
leave the US in order to avoid triggering an international incident between
the US and Cuba.

“Regarding my application for political asylum in the United States, I want
to clarify that the Cuban dictator wishes to create an international
situation to damage the image of the United States,” he was quoted as
saying.

Mr Castro on Tuesday organised huge public demonstrations in Havana to
demand the arrest and deportation of Mr Posada.

There is little chance of that happening. The US immigration department
said: “As a matter of immigration law and policy, ICE does not generally
remove people to Cuba, nor does ICE generally remove people to countries
believed to be acting on Cuba's behalf.”

Mr Posada is also wanted by Venezuela, which formally lodged an extradition
request with the US last week, the State Department confirmed. But any
decision to extradite the veteran anti-Castro plotter to Venezuela would be
fiercely challenged by the Cuban exile community in the US, where many see
Mr Posada as a hero.

Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's president, is a close ally of Mr Castro, and
experts believe the Venezuelan authorities could hand Mr Posada over to
Cuba.

As Mr Castro's public enemy number one, Mr Posada would probably face death
by firing squad in Cuba. After claiming involvement in the failed 1961 Bay
of Pigs invasion of Cuba, Mr Posada arrived in Venezuela in the 1960s and
was employed in counter-insurgency operations. Later, he bragged that he
worked with the US-backed Contras in Nicaragua in the 1980s, and claimed to
have directed several bomb attacks in Havana.

Oddly, however, former Venezuelan intelligence police recall that Mr Posada
was dubbed “Bambi” for his doe-like character and unsteady footing as a spy.

 

 

Bush's war on terror put to test by fugitive from Cuba
By Marc Frank in Havana 
FT: May 17 2005 

It has been nearly 29years since a terrorist bomb blasted Cubana de
Aviacion's Flight 455 out of the sky off the coast of Barbados. But the
people of Cuba have not forgiven the October 1976 incident, which killed 73
passengers and crew, including the country's youthful fencing team.

A prime suspect in the bombing - Luis Posada Carriles, 77, a CIA-trained
explosives expert - is seeking asylum in the US. The move could challenge
George W. Bush's war on terrorism and his policy that those who finance and
harbour terrorists are equally guilty.

Today, in one of the biggest political mobilisations orchestrated by Fidel
Castro since the Cuban president took power in 1959, hundreds of thousands
are expected to protest against what Mr Castro calls a US-based terrorist
network. He says the organisation has bombed and shot at the country's
diplomats, airline officials, ships and other soft targets abroad, and has
attempted to assassinate Cuban leaders and infiltrate the island to incite
mayhem.

Mr Castro has embarked on a marathon of 20 televised speeches over the past
month, hammering away at Bush administration inaction over Mr Posada, in the
Miami area since March, his attorneys and friends say, but whose whereabouts
the US government insists are unknown.

Mr Posada has admitted organising dozens of attacks on Cuban leaders and
soft targets but denies involvement in the Cubana incident.

He once confessed to a series of 1987 Havana hotel and restaurant bombings
that left an Italian businessman dead and 11 other tourists injured. He is a
fugitive from Venezuela, where he holds citizenship and which formally
requested his extradition on Friday in a letter to the State Department.

The Homeland Security Department confirmed last week that Mr Posada had
applied for political asylum. But the State Department has been
non-committal, insisting last week that it did not know Mr Posada's
whereabouts and deflecting to the Justice Department questions on whether
the US even considers Mr Posada a terrorist.

Mr Castro accuses the Bush administration of not moving on Mr Posada because
it would enrage Mr Bush's Cuban-American supporters in Florida, where his
brother, Jeb Bush, is governor.

"We have to demand that justice be done and that Posada Carriles and his
accomplices be arrested and punished for their crimes," Mr Castro said last
week. "Do not imagine the protests will cease [if Mr Posada is arrested and
deported]," he said.

Mr Castro added that he wanted to bring to justice other "terrorists in
Miami" and free five of his agents captured in Miami in the late 1990s and
sentenced to long prison terms as spies. "The United States is responsible
for all the terrorist attacks on our country since the revolution," Mr
Castro said.

Cuba has sent dozens of agents to Miami since the 1960s, when exiles,
frustrated by the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, began attacking any Cuban
target they could find. The agents helped thwart numerous attempts to
assassinate Mr Castro and to send commandos into Cuba. They have compiled
dossiers on dozens of exiles who, Cuba says, organised, financed and carried
out terrorist activities.

"The declassified record leaves no doubt that Posada has been one of the
world's most unremitting purveyors of terrorist violence," says Peter
Kornbluh, of the private National Security Archive research project at
George Washington University. The Posada case will prove a litmus test in
the war on terrorism, he said.

Declassified US intelligence records posted on the National Security Agency
web page last week identified Mr Posada and Orlando Bosch, his associate and
reputed leader of the Coru anti-Castro terrorist umbrella organisation, as
the engineers of the 1976 aircraft bombing. The records link them to other
terrorist acts, including a car bomb that killed Orlando Letelier, the
exiled Chilean foreign minister, and his US aide in Washington two weeks
after the Cubana explosion.

President George H. W. Bush was the Central Intelligence Agency's director
when the Cubana aircraft exploded, and vice-president when Mr Posada began
running arms illegally to Nicaraguan contras after bribing his way out of a
Venezuelan prison during legal wrangling over his role in the bombing. In
1990 - over the objections of the Justice Department, which called Mr Bosch
"a terrorist, unfettered by laws or human decency" - Mr Bush authorised Mr
Bosch's entry into the US from Venezuela.

Arrested in 2000 and convicted in Panama, along with three Cuban- Americans,
in a plot to blow up Mr Castro, Mr Posada and his co-conspirators were
pardoned. Mr Posada's associates flew directly to Miami but he disappeared,
surfacing later in the US to become Mr Castro's perfect issue in a campaign
to neutralise his most intractable foes.

 


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