Immigration Hearing Set for Cuban Militant (bomber)

[Judi Lynn]

Immigration Hearing Set for Cuban Militant
Immigration Hearing to Begin for Cuban Militant Accused of 1976 Plane Bombing That Killed 73
By ALICIA A. CALDWELL Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press

EL PASO, Texas Aug 28, 2005 — A 77-year-old anti-Castro militant accused of orchestrating the deadly 1976 bombing of a Cuban jetliner faces a deportation hearing that will also consider whether the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion was an act of U.S. terrorism.

Luis Posada Carriles is being held in a federal detention center in El Paso on charges that he sneaked into the country through Mexico in March. He was arrested in Miami in May.

At issue in Monday's hearing, which could last a week, is whether the former CIA operative and U.S. Army lieutenant should be granted asylum in the United States despite requests by Venezuela that he be deported to that country.

Venezuelan officials have alleged that Posada, an ex-Venezuelan security official, was in Caracas when he plotted the bombing of the Cuban jetliner that crashed off the coast of Barbados, killing 73 people.

A recently declassified CIA document quotes an unidentified former Venezuelan official as saying that shortly before the bombing, Posada was heard to say that he and others "are going to hit a Cuban airplane."
(snip/...)

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1075065

[Vogon_Glory]

1. Airline Bombers Ceased To Be Amusing A Long Time Ago

People who plant bombs on passenger aircraft ceased to be amusing at least two decades before the Cubana airliner was blown up. Give the villain the bum's rush out of the USA!

[ret5hd]

2. rot in prison you slimy POS...

may the vile poison that flows thru the militant exile community die with your generation.

[Mika]

3. Where is CubsFan1982 on this?

Posada is his kinda guy. ;)

[Judi Lynn]

6. Joined the choir invisible, Mika! Awwwwww.

It's so hard trying to break the news to you!

[Blue_Tires]

8. he was certainly asking for it

with all those flamefest he posted last night

[Judi Lynn]

12. You've got THAT right. I've never seen a poster start two threads

on exactly the same subject and keep them both going at the same time. (You have to ask yourself, "What's the point?) Isn't that like playing two slot machines or something? Jeez.

And, besides the two Cuban threads, started two hours apart, he contributed, at no cost to DU'ers, an additional Hugo Chavez hate thread.

Not to mention the Fidel Castro thread his pal had running, on which he was a constant commenter.

Some people have no concept of self-control.

[Lori Price CLG]

4. Why are Reichwing terrorists referred to as 'rebels' and 'militants' but

anti-US resistance fighters referred to as 'terrorists' in the mainstream media?

Lori Price

[Southpaw Bookworm]

10. An excellent question

Somewhat akin to the one regarding why people who destroy property in the name of saving the environment are terrorists, but men who blow up women's clinics and save a nail bomb for the first responders are considered lone-wolf extremists, even when they are affiliated with a particular group.

[Judi Lynn]

11. He's been involved in nothing BUT terrorism for decades.

Suddenly he's a MILITANT. I don't think this could happen without _Bush's intimidation of ALL American media.

Pathetic, despicable.

[IndianaGreen]

5. Carriles is a terrorist!

He should be in a dog cage in Guantanamo. Or better still, he should be extradited to Venezuela to face justice.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Ally denies Posada trip but declines to testify

Posted on Sun, Aug. 28, 2005

Ally denies Posada trip but declines to testify

A Cuban-American television tycoon in Honduras has emerged as a Central American benefactor for Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles.

BY OSCAR CORRAL AND ALFONSO CHARDY
[e-mail]

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras - After his closest brush with death, when assassins sprayed his face, arm and torso with machine-gun fire in Guatemala in 1990, Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles turned to one person: television tycoon Rafael Nodarse. The Cuban-American magnate, one of the richest, most powerful -- and perhaps most colorful -- men in Honduras, had Posada transferred to San Pedro Sula, stationed men at his bedside and nursed him back to health.

''My guards took care of him,'' Nodarse said. ``He couldn't eat. He had to be fed through a tube in his mouth.''

Now, facing a trial in immigration court that will decide whether he can stay in the United States, Posada is again calling on his old friend. But Nodarse, a brash, contentious cross between William Randolph Hearst and the fictional Scarface character Tony Montana, won't be there.

Posada's lawyers and Miami supporters wanted him to testify in court in El Paso, Texas, this week, but Nodarse told The Herald he had nothing to say that would be of help.

''If I do , it will backfire on them,'' he said.
(snip)

His wife is 22; they have a newborn. Nodarse proclaims proudly that after two open-heart surgeries and a stroke, he keeps company with several young women -- ``without taking Viagra or anything.''

''I have a reputation for being a puto (slut),'' he said. ``. . . I'm not going to take a cent to the grave with me, so I might as well have a good time.''
(snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/cuba/12495651.htm
(Free registration required)

[lumpy]

9. CIA operative and US Army Lt.?

This guy is an apt definition of a creep, protected by creeps.

[Judi Lynn]

13. He also was a "high level official in the Venezuelan intelligence service"

the 1970's.

Here's declassified material on this criminal:

LUIS POSADA CARRILES
THE DECLASSIFIED RECORD
CIA and FBI Documents Detail Career in International Terrorism; Connection to U.S.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153/

[AlphaCentauri]

14. U.S. Agrees With Posada Claim .....

Luis Posada Carriles appeared in court today to begin making his case for asylum to stay in the United States. Stronger and more assertive than at his July hearing, he spoke in a voice that revealed his age but barely hid the ferocity that has fueled his life as perhaps the most prolific terrorist in the western hemisphere. Spittle frequently fell from his mouth, even though he incessantly dabbed his lips with a napkin; the consequence of would-be assassins’ bullets to his face in Guatemala City in 1991. When the Department of Homeland Security attorneys entered the courtroom, Posada immediately moved over to accommodate their chairs; the gracious host making room at his table for guests. Dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit and wearing headphones for translation purposes, he answered Judge William Abbott’s questions politely, precisely, and firmly. Abbott asked Posada if his asylum application was a true account of the incidents and information it related. Posada, clad in a bullet proof vest under his prison issue, answered in a loud voice, "Yes sir, of course."
Outside, protestors chanted, calling for Posada’s extradition to Cuba or Venezuela and hung pictures of the 73 victims of Cubana Flight 455, blown up on October 6, 1976, by Posada, fellow terrorist Orlando Bosch, and two of Posada’s employees. Two sisters of Raymond Persaud, a Cubana Airlines bombing victim, begged to be let into the hearing to see the man who had destroyed their brother, but seats were only available to the media. While the U.S. Government denies any involvement in the Cubana bombing, evidence indicates that the Director of Central Intelligence at the time of the bombing, George H.W. Bush, was aware of the conspiracy and that he did nothing to warn the Cubans.

/Snip/
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/8/29/234855/616

[Judi Lynn]

15. The mind reels at the astonishing hypocrisy here.....

From your article's account of the hearing:

While picketers on the street blared their message of remembrance for the slain through microphones, in the courtroom chief government attorney, Gina Garrett-Jackson, announced in an opening statement that the government would not contest Posada’s claim that his extradition to Cuba would violate the Convention Against Torture. The CAT treaty, among other things, prohibits the extradition or return, or "refouler," of people to countries where it is more likely than not that the extradited person will be subjected to torture. Ratified by the United States in 1994, and supported with enabling statutes, the Bush Administration, through Garrett-Jackson, was only too glad to publicly imply that Posada’s extradition to Cuba would result in his torture. This is the same Administration that kidnapped Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, from New York and flew him manacled and gagged to the Middle East to be delivered to the Syrian government for months of torture. Justified in these acts by an assertion that Arar was an associate of known members of al Qaeda, it nonetheless turned out that Arar had no association whatsoever with terrorists. In similar disregard for law, Bush has sent suspected terrorists to Uzbekistan, where torture of prisoners is commonplace, and interrogators sometimes boil their captives to death. The Bush Administration has carried out dozens of these "extraordinary renditions," the kidnapping and delivery for torture of persons to third countries, and seems little concerned about the CAT on those occasions. In this case, however, a known terrorist who has engaged in numerous violent and deadly acts against civilian targets is nevertheless afforded meticulous protection under the CAT, protection that Maher Arar, who was no terrorist at all, was denied.
(snip/...)

It looks as if he is as safe as a babe in his parent's arms. Good lord.

Glad to learn this, also, from the article:

....evidence indicates that the Director of Central Intelligence at the time of the bombing, George H.W. Bush, was aware of the conspiracy and that he did nothing to warn the Cubans.
(snip)

This seems completely likely (yet vile).

[maddezmom]

16. Anti-Castro militant could go to Venezuela: US judge

EL PASO, United States (AFP) - A US judge warned Luis Posada Carriles, wanted in Venezuela for bombing a Cuban airliner, that he would seek deportation to Venezuela if he had entered the United States illegally.

Venezuela has asked that the United States extradite Posada Carriles, a hardline opponent of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, in connection with the 1976 attack against the Cubana jet that left 73 people dead.

The United States has so far balked on Caracas' request. The Cuban-born Venezuelan's hearing in El Paso, Texas, focuses on immigration charges that he entered the United States illegally through Mexico in March. He was arrested in May after emerging in Miami.

Posada Carriles, who was trained by the Central Intelligence Agency to participate in the botched Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, is seeking political asylum in the United States.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050830/ts_alt_afp/usvenezuelacubacarriles_050830052842;_