Federal judge sentences Cuban exiles on weapons charges

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"Two longtime anti-Castro activists convicted of plotting to possess illegal weapons were sentenced to between three and four years in prison Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale federal court.

Santiago Alvarez, a wealthy Miami developer who has supported Cuban exile causes, must serve about four years in prison and pay a $10,000 fine. His colleague, Osvaldo Mitat, must serve three years but does not have to pay any fine.

Both men, who pleaded guilty in September on the eve of their high-stakes trial, avoided the possibility of imprisonment for the rest of their lives."

<snip>

"Both men, who have been in custody for one year, were accused of conspiring to stash machine guns, firearms, a silencer and a grenade launcher in a Broward apartment complex that belonged to Alvarez. Both were ordered to forfeit those weapons as part of their sentencings.

U.S. government agents first learned about Alvarez in May 2005 when he helped Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles emerge from hiding before his arrest for entering the country illegally. Posada, who has been implicated in various alleged terror attacks against Cuba, is still in federal custody in Texas."

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16011448.htm

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. Not only did Alvarez help Posada hide

He brought Posada into the country aboard his yacht.

Interesting how they fail to mention the C4 explosives Alvarez had in his stash. Supposedly Alvarez & Co had enough weapons to cause a major bloodbath.

4 years for a major terrorist isn't much. But of course since he's Cuban and not Muslim, he's not a real terrorist.

[ngant17]

2. He's a Cuban and didn't get sent to Guantanamo

sounds like the torture chambers over there are custom-made for him. Or do you get a "get-out-of-torture for free" card for being a Repug?

[phoebe]

3. no mention of CIA training in that article. It's as if it never happened..

http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2005/diciembre/mar13/51basulto.html

snip

THREATS ON Miami’S CHANNEL 41
Basulto confesses to having fired on a Havana hotel
• Recounts other acts of terrorism with the aid of the CIA and without being bothered by the FBI

BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD — Special for Granma International

José Basulto, head of the organization Brothers to the Rescue, openly bragged on a recent Miami Channel 41 program “A Mano Limpia” (Straight Talk) hosted by Oscar Haza, of having fired a 22mm cannon from a speedboat on a hotel in Havana, and that “so far” the FBI has not even questioned him about it.

In an act of blatant threat to the U.S. authorities, he also freely said that the CIA not only trained him but also directed terrorist activities by Cuban-American groups against Cuba.

The program on which Basulto made this admission was dedicated to the trial of his buddies Santiago Alvarez Magriñá and Osvaldo Mitat, two Miami extremists recently arrested for possession of illegal weapons. Santiago Alvarez is the “protector” of Luis Posada Carriles and it was he who facilitated the latter’s illegal entry into the United States from Mexico.

On August 24, 1962 the terrorist, trained by the CIA in the use of arms and explosives along with Luis Posada Carriles, fired on a Havana hotel supposedly frequented by President Fidel Castro with a canon from a boat some 200 meters offshore in the Miramar neighborhood of the capital, hitting the building and spreading terror among the guests.

JEB and friends will just carry on as usual...

[Judi Lynn]

4. Posada Carriles would probably still be living as a free man, er, terrorist in Miami

if it hadn't been for his own need to swagger and boast culminating in his calling his own press conference after which he had become such a high profile character the U.S. gummint had to pounce on him or be targeted for letting him run around absolutely free as a bird.

Your great article shows this chest thumping, loud machismo from these terrorists is very, very common in Miami. They loooooove to brag. They all do it.

It really got them all wild when they were stopped in the sea between Florida and Cuba in a yacht one of them owned, loaded down with weapons, got their weapons confiscated and were sent on their way without being thrown into the slammer back at home. They thought that was next to a Presidential citation. They do boast the Florida FBI couldn't care less what they do, and would never bother them.

Basulto is a very slippery, sneaky one. It's good to see him revealed in the article.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Too damned bad they were allowed to cut a deal instead of getting

the national spotlight trained on their grubby backsides. They may swagger around Miami, among a few deranged idiot Miami Mafia clowns, people so twisted they even named a street for their most famous bomber/mass murderer, but they look like common low-grade thugs and criminals to others. Jerks. Clowns. Scum.

Time is thinning out their numbers, they've all heard each others lies about their heroics a million times. It'll be stupendous knowing they'll have to go visit these two fools at the local prison.



Oswaldo Mitat, Santiago Alvarez

[maddezmom]

6. kick

[Mika]

7. Cuban exiles get prison for stockpiling machine guns, grenade launcher in Broward

Cuban exiles get prison for stockpiling machine guns, grenade launcher in Broward
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-ccache15nov15,0,3954287.story?coll=sfla-news-broward

Prominent Cuban exile Santiago Alvarez was sentenced to nearly four years in prison Tuesday for his part in a conspiracy to stockpile weapons for possible use against Cuba.

A federal judge in Fort Lauderdale imposed Alvarez's 46-month sentence before a courtroom packed with relatives and supporters, closing a case that infuriated some Cuban exiles.

U.S. District Judge James Cohn sentenced Alvarez's employee and longtime friend, Osvaldo Mitat, to 37 months.

The men, both exiles and staunch opponents of Fidel Castro's communist government, pleaded guilty in September to illegally storing weapons, including six machine guns and a grenade launcher, in a Broward County apartment complex owned by Alvarez, 65.

Authorities found the weapons cache as Mitat, 64, transported it from the Lauderhill complex to another location. Prosecutors said the weapons were intended for attacks on Castro's government.

Not terra-ists. I repeat.. NOT terra-ists - freedom fighters. :eyes:

[SteppingRazor]

8. What exactly did they plan to do with all this stuff, anyway?

I mean, the last invasion of Cuba by right-wing expatriates didn't exactly work out too well.

[Mika]

9. These cretins (Posada among them) have been incursing Cuba on terra missions for decades

Hotel bombings, theater bombings, firebombing businesses, strafing tourist beaches, poisoning crops, and on and on.

Not all of their terra activity has benn committed in Cuba, but in the US also.



http://www.afrocubaweb.com/posada.htm

[DoYouEverWonder]

12. They were getting ready for 'Return to Bay of Pigs 2'

When Alvarez went before the judge when he was charged, the judge said there were enough explosives to cause a major bloodbath. Alvarez's response was that he wasn't planning to use this stuff in the US.

[wholetruth00]

10. Isn't it about time our government took a serious look at its Cuban policy?

These people (the so-called Cuban dissedents) have shafted us in more ways than one. Besides this indicident, it is now coming out their misuse of "Cuban democracy" funds that they get from our government. And, of course, there is always the 2000 election lurking in the background along with the Elian incident. I say, they need to be shafted along with AIPAC and other lobbying groups that do no real good for the US but cause more problems than benefits.

[Ian David]

11. Cuba obstructs their view of Grand Cayman. n/t

[DoYouEverWonder]

13. I notice they lost the C4 explosives

in the translation.

According to the original press reports, Alvarez's stash included C4 explosives. Wonder where he got that stuff?

[Judi Lynn]

14. C-4 is such a big fave among the Miami violent hard-liners.

Some of them worked in Vietnam, maybe that's where they started using it, but it has been used for decades in Miami. Here's a reference to Posada's last C-4 possession, in Panama, a few years ago:

After a slow recovery, Mr. Posada, by his own admission, ran a string of operatives on a series of missions to blow up Cuban people and places. Mr. Posada spoke to The New York Times seven years ago, boasting of what was then his latest exploit, a string of bombings at Havana's hottest tourist spots that terrorized the city and killed an Italian visitor. Then in November 2000, he traveled to Panama, accompanied by Guillermo Novo, whose conviction in the Letelier bombing had been overturned on appeal; Gaspar Jiménez, convicted of trying to kidnap a Cuban diplomat in Mexico in 1977; and Pedro Remón, convicted of the attempted murder of Cuba's ambassador to the United Nations in 1980. The moment Mr. Castro arrived in Panama for an international conference, he accused Mr. Posada of plotting against his life. Mr. Posada was seized, along with his three colleagues and 33 pounds of the plastic explosive C-4. Despite Mr. Posada's protest that the case was a sting set up by the Cuban spy service, he received an eight-year sentence in April 2004 for endangering public safety.
(snip)

~~~~ link ~~~~

This monstrosity, Ricardo "Monkey" Morales was a figure in Miami and in the Congo, and throughout Latin America who trafficked in C-4. It's mentioned in this part of an infuriating court transcript. He was connected to the bombing of the Cubana airliner, as well.

http://www.cuban-exile.com/doc_051-075/doc0051.html

What a jerk. He was murdered, eventually, in a bar in Florida.

[DoYouEverWonder]

15. Just curious

which bar did they kill him in?

[Judi Lynn]

16. Just took a quick search, didn't see the name, but it was in Key Biscayne.

Rafael Villaverde vanished on a fishing trip after bonding out after his arrest in 1982. According to Edward Jay Epstein, Villaverde's "speedboat exploded off the coast of Florida". His body has never been found. Soon afterwards Ricardo Morales was killed during a bar brawl in Key Biscayne. As a result, all charges concerning this drug-smuggling group were dropped.
(snip)

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKnavarrete.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here's another reference to his death:

It is also a crime to cover up criminal acts, but there are innumerable examples of instances in which the CIA and the FBI conspired to interfere with the criminal prosecution of drug dealers, murderers, and assassins. In the death of Letellier, mentioned earlier, the FBI and the CIA refused to cooperate with the prosecution of the DINA agents who murdered Letellier (Dinges and Landau, 1980: 208-209). Those agencies were also involved in the cover-up of the criminal activities of a Cuban exile, Ricardo (Monkey) Morales. While an employee of the FBI and the CIA, Morales planted a bomb on an Air Cubana flight from Venezuela, which killed 73 people. The Miami police confirmed Morales’ claim that he was acting under orders from the CIA (Lernoux, 1984: 188). In fact, Morales, who was arrested for overseeing the shipment of 10 tons of marijuana, admitted to being a CIA contract agent who conducted murders, bombings, and assassinations. He was himself killed in a bar after he made public his work with the CIA and the FBI.
(snip)

http://www.apfn.net/MESSAGEBOARD/02-19-05/discussion.cgi.10.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Strange guy!

[DoYouEverWonder]

17. Well, that does narrow it down

there are only a handful of bars on Key Biscayne. The Sandbar was very popular back then. Of course, lot's of crazy stuff going on out around Stiltsville too.

[Judi Lynn]

18. I looked a little more, and don't find a specific name. You'd want to stay OUT of places like that!

You'd just never want to frequent a place which was the old stomping grounds of a murdered hit man and bomber.

I just remembered Richard Nixon, whose best bud was also a Cuban "exile," "Bebe" Rebozo, also had a house in Key Biscayne, which he embellished with taxpayers' money during his Presidency.

[Mika]

19. Hey, Raul Saul Sanchez did jail time for stabbing/murdering someone in a bar.

Just wondering.
____

Here's a great read

Keeping things in perspective: Cuba and the question of international terrorism
PDF
http://www.ciponline.org/cuba/ipr/keepingthingsinperspective.pdf
As HTML
http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:vP3J9CeWGYMJ:www.ciponline.org/cuba/ipr/keepingthingsinperspective.pdf+Keeping+things+in+perspective:+Cuba+and+the+question+of+international+terrorism&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

[Judi Lynn]

20. Oh, God! Is he still yammering about his flotilla?

I could swear I heard he told the press once that he, like Jose Basulto, aspired to the principles of Ghandhi! Yeah, you often think of Ghandhi in the same breath when you're also thinking of violent Cuban hard-right terrorists.

[Judi Lynn]

22. Just read your article about international Cuban exile violence.Superb.

From the article:

Militant hard-line exile activities in the late 70s and early 80s caused the FBI to designate Miami the “terrorist capital” of the United States. The terrorist activities in Miami included death threats, beatings, mob attacks, vandalism, extortion, bombings and outright murder. These activities are well documented by the Justice Department and the Miami-Dade police department.3
(snip)

Anyone who isn't familiar with their kind of activities will get a very good look at what they've been doing with themselves since Cuba's revolution.

It's still astonishing to know:

Under the preponderance of evidence, the
Justice Department denied Bosch’s petition to
remain in the United States. The associate attorney
general, Joe D. Whitley stated in the decision that,
“For 30 years Bosch has been resolute and
unwavering in his advocacy of terrorist violence . . .
He has repeatedly expressed and demonstrated a
willingness to cause indiscriminate injury and
death.”28
Nevertheless, former Florida senator Connie
Mack, Florida Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a
strident anti-Castroite, and Jeb Bush (who was her
campaign manager), all lobbied for Bosch’s release
from INS custody. State senators, city
commissioners, mayors and many other civic leaders
in the Miami area vehemently protested the decision.
The first Bush administration overruled its own
Justice Department by having Bosch released from
prison and allowing him to remain in the country. 29
In a July 20, 1990 editorial, The New York Times
wrote, “The release from jail of Orlando Bosch is a
startling example of political justice. The Justice
Department, under no legal compulsion but conspicuous
political pressure, has let him out,
winning cheers from local politicians—and
squandering American credibility on issues of
terrorism.” 30
In 1992, under the first Bush administration,
Orlando Bosch received an administrative pardon31
and he now lives in Miami. When questioned about
the 1976 bombing carried out by the terrorist
organization that he founded, Bosch declared, "you
have to fight violence with violence. At times you
cannot avoid hurting innocent people." 32
(snip)

Isn't that wonderful?????? :eyes:

[wholetruth00]

21. A grenade launcher? WTF! These are terrorists for sure.

What might they have done and blamed it on Castro sympathizers?