4-14-07, 10:24 am
The two federal attorneys of the U.S. Justice Department’s Counterterrorism Section, instructed by Attorney General Gonzales to sink the Posada Carriles case forever, are well aware to what dead-end alley they have taken the case.
On one side, Judge Kathleen Cardone, who granted the terrorist bail; on the other, U.S. District Judge Philip R. Martínez, who is still awaiting a dossier informing him why Posada is a danger to national security.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order this Thursday to keep Posada in jail for now, giving Posada until Tuesday 17 to appeal that order and giving the prosecution more time to challenge his bail.
With offices in Washington D.C., John W. Van Lonkhuyzen and Paul Ahern are the direct employees of that same Alberto Gonzales who, in 2002, as legal advisor to the White House, stated that the Geneva Convention did not apply to the treatment of enemy prisoners in the so-called war on terror. This is the same Gonzales that Congress is currently accusing of using the legal apparatus to the benefit of Republican ultra-right forces in the United States.
Ahern has blocked the only legal way out of the labyrinth, according to what he told the AFP, by stating that the United States does not have the jurisdiction to try Posada for the sabotage of the Cubana Aviation passenger plane in 1976, ignoring with a perfect Bush-style arrogance the Convention for the Repression of Illicit Acts against Civil Aviation and the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, both signed by the United States.
With the deposit of the $350,000 bail bond in El Paso by the Apodaca’s Bail Bond company and the $100,000 presented in Miami by Posada’s mafia family, Van Lonkhuyzen and Paul Ahern are now trying to return Posada to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities, so that he can re-appear before Judge Martínez, who has asked for evidence of the danger posed by the most notorious torturer, killer and terrorist in America. Evidence that is not forthcoming.
Posada Carriles, one of the masterminds of the sabotage of a Cuban passenger plane in 1976, in which 73 people died, is one step away from leaving prison for Miami, the location of his old accomplice Orlando Bosch, likewise the beneficiary of a legal system as crooked as it is corrupt.
Meanwhile, the five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters who had the courage to penetrate the ranks of Miami terrorism are still incarcerated in five of the most brutal penitentiaries of the country that invented Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. That is Bush’s justice. From Granma
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