4-10-07, 8:45 am
Before some 30 of his supporters representing various groups preaching the use of terror against Cuba, Luis Posada Carriles – still not accused of terrorism, in violation of a number of international conventions – offered a property valued at $2.5 million as guarantee for his bail application.
According to news agency reports, the hearing before Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso, Texas, took place in the presence of at least 30 representatives of Cuban exile organizations in California and Miami.
The organizations identified included the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association (Brigade 2506) headed by assassin and CIA agent Félix Ismael Rodríguez Mendigutía; the Independent and Democratic Cuba of drug trafficker Hubert Matos; and the so-called Cuban Political Prisoners Council, of the notorious terrorist Reinaldo Aquit.
But among the individuals in the courtroom, without Judge Cardone being aware of it and unmentioned by the agencies, was Ernesto Díaz Rodríguez, chief of the Alpha 66 terrorist group. Alpha 66 has a history of acts of terrorism against Cuba spanning more than 40 years. Díaz Rodríguez subsequently commented publicly on the hearing during a Miami radio program along with Mafia lawyer Arturo Hernández Hernández, Posada’s defense attorney.
During the hearing, Hernández emphasized that Posada Carriles can count upon 'important sympathizers in the Cuban exile community in Miami' who have signed petitions for him, without commenting on the presence of notorious terrorists in the campaign organized for those purposes.
Among other signatures, the 'petition' mentioned by Hernández bears that of Orlando Bosch, terrorist accomplice in the sabotage of a Cubana passenger plane in 1976, which killed 73 people; Rodolfo Frómeta, capo of the terrorist Comando F-4 group; and various other individuals identified with the Alpha 66 group.
ELDERLY INVALID SCRIPT
Trying to win the court’s sympathy, Hernández did not hesitate to fall back on the script already used in Panama by narco-lawyer Rogelio Cruz, making out that Posada is suffering from a whole series of illnesses ranging from cancer to diabetes, and including arterial hypertension and arthritis.
Posada is an elderly and sick person who is not threatening anyone’s tranquility, the lawyer stated, without mentioning that when the criminal was released from the El Renacer prison in Panama, the 'elderly invalid' was capable of disappearing for months in Honduras, using a stolen passport and taking advantage of the aid of his Central American network of assorted notorious criminals.
Describing the conditions in Otero County Jail in New Mexico, where Posada is being held, Hernández gave details recalling how Bush’s prisons are using methods observed in the Guantánamo interrogation camp.
There, he affirmed, it is impossible to sleep, because they keep the lights burning 24 hours a day, and do not provide adequate medical services.
On April 17, 2005, warning that Posada Carriles could be 'disappeared' in the United States, President Fidel Castro commented: 'In order that they don’t kill him now, don’t poison him, don’t say that he died of a heart attack or a brain hemorrhage, we are prepared to send doctors to look after him, so that he tells what he knows and goes on trial.'
FALSE PASSPORTS FACILITATED BY THE UNITED STATES
District Attorney Paul Ahern stated that there was no guarantee that Posada would remain under house arrest, given that he escaped from a Venezuelan jail in 1985 after being charged with the attack on the Cuban aircraft and traveled on false passports on a number of occasions.
With surprising frankness, Hernández responded that those passports were facilitated by the U.S. government, which was aware of his existence at least when Posada Carriles was a CIA informer.
Nobody denied that assertion.
One of the terrorist’s lawyers, Matthew L. Archambeault, argued on another occasion that Posada 'knows a lot' and that if he talked, it could be damaging to the FBI, the CIA and the government in general. Hernández’ reference seems to be a similar attempt to pressure the justice system.
The Bush family connection with anti-Cuban terrorism and Posada in particular dates back to the early 1960s and goes from Operation 40 in the context of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion to the presence of CIA agent Jorge Mas Canosa at the head of the Cuban-American National Foundation, which funded and directed acts of terrorism confessed to by Posada.
Hernández offered bail in the form of a commercial property in Miami valued at $2.5 million and belonging to one Judith García. The lawyer also proposed an additional corporate bond of $100,000.
DISTRICT ATTORNEY IGNORES INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS
Ahern affirmed that the United States lacks jurisdiction to try Posada for the attack on the Cubana Aviation airplane in 1976. Surprisingly, the district attorney appeared to ignore the fact that the U.S. government signed the Convention for the Repression of Illicit Acts against Civil Aviation in 1971 and the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, in effect since 2001.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) stated months back in a letter to Posada Carriles, that he was a danger to national security due to his long record of criminal activity and violence in which innocent civilians died.
Judge Cardone will decide in the course of this week whether to release Posada, who faces seven charges of immigration fraud and of having lied to immigration officials.
Posada tried to say that he entered the United States illegally via the Matamoros-Brownsville location, when his arrival in Miami aboard the shrimper Santrina, accompanied by various terrorists of his clan, has been documented.
The trial is scheduled for May 11 in El Paso.
from Granma
| | |
