Bomber Names Ex-CIA Operative in Cuba Bombings

[sabra]

Source: CBS News/AP

Salvadoran Man Says He Received Explosives and $2K in Cash from U.S. Agent to Carry Out 1997 Hotel Bombing

HAVANA — A Salvadoran man jailed in Cuba in connection with a string of 1990s hotel bombings says he told a U.S. prosecutor that he got explosives and money directly from a former CIA operative now on trial in Texas, and that he is willing to testify against him.

Otto Rene Rodriguez told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Tuesday that he received powerful C-4 explosives and $2,000 in cash directly from Luis Posada Carriles to carry out an Aug. 3, 1997, bombing at Havana's Melia Cohiba hotel. He was captured trying to enter the country on a subsequent trip with 1.5 kilos (3.3 pounds) of C-4 that Posada had given him, he said.

"Truthfully, looking me in the eyes he cannot say he doesn't know me," Rodriguez said. "He does know me. He used me like a tool."

Posada, 82, is not on trial directly for the bombing campaign — but rather for allegedly lying about his involvement to federal authorities during immigration hearings after he sneaked into the U.S. in March 2005.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/02/09/501364/main20031128.shtml?tag=cbsnewsSectionContent.3

[hootinholler]

1. It won't go anywhere

But it's useful to know.

-Hoot

[Peace Patriot]

2. "Posada, 82, is not on trial directly for the bombing campaign." Therein lies a tale!

Venezuela asked for his extradition for the Cubana airliner bombing, in which 70+ people were slaughtered including a Cuban sports team. Instead of honoring that request, as it should, the U.S. put Posada on trial for mere perjury about his illegal immigration to the U.S. (concerning which the U.S. immigration officials/FBI apparently botched certain details--for instance, their failure to inspect the yacht he arrived on). He could go free on these perjury charges and go back to his luxury digs in Miami, a hero to the Miami mafia, or he could do a few years for perjury after murdering hundreds, possibly thousands, of people (--he goes way back, to the U.S.-funded 'Contra' thugs and assassins in Nicaragua, and beyond that, to the "Bay of Pigs").

But Posada is a CIA asset. And this makes the current situation extremely murky. At first I thought there might be an FBI/DOJ vs CIA internal 'war' going on, or currents within each agency at "war" with each other (perhaps straight-arrow types vs Bushwhacks?). It is damn strange for the FBI/DOJ to be prosecuting a CIA asset, with all the risks that that entails of U.S. secrets getting exposed. But, after following some of the details of this trial, I think what happened is this: The CIA, in concert with the FBI/DOJ, made a deal with Posada to protect him from prosecution for his many murders on the CIA payroll, by a fake prosecution--a prosecution with the evidence stacked against the prosecutors. The aim of it is to get him his luxury retirement in Miami, but, if, by chance, he gets convicted anyway, he is at least spared prosecution for murder and will be out as soon as the CIA can arrange it (or assassinated in prison if he becomes a risk). His part of the bargain is to keep his lip zipped.

One of the ironies of this situation--and of the corpo-fascist 'news' articles about it--is that the immigration judge who turned down the extradition request from Venezuela claimed that Posada was at risk of being "tortured" in Venezuela or Cuba. The Chavez government has NEVER even been accused of torture, let alone committed it. And Venezuela doesn't even have a death penalty! And there is no evidence that Cuba has tortured anyone. And I don't think they have the death penalty either. But guess who HAS BEEN torturing prisoners on the other end of the island of Cuba, at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere in the world? The good ol' U.S. of A.! This NEVER gets mentioned in the corpo-fascist press--that the basis for keeping Posada in the U.S. was bogus.

And if you don't think the CIA/FBI/DOJ are capable of collusion, lying, cheating and blatantly abusing power in the cause of injustice, consider this, of recent date: The CIA is protecting and coddling Bush Cartel asset, Alvaro Uribe, former pResident of Colombia, who was basically running Colombia as a criminal enterprise, including not just drug trafficking, massive domestic spying, bribery, fraudulent elections and other crimes, but the murders of thousands of trade unionists, human rights workers, teachers, community activists, journalists, political leftists, peasant farmers and others--the decapitation of the poor majority's leadership--all done with $7 BILLION (U.S. taxpayer money) in military aid. This was, in truth, the purpose of the aid--to prepare Colombia for U.S. "free trade for the rich."

Colombian prosecutors were going after Uribe, but, guess what happened? All the main death squad witnesses got extradited to the U.S. on mere drug trafficking charges--over the objections of Colombian prosecutors--and the witnesses got "buried" in the U.S. federal prison system and their cases completely sealed in U.S. federal court in Washington DC (an unusual procedure). Then, very recently, the chief spying witness against Uribe fled Colombia and received unusual, overnight asylum in the U.S. client state of Panama--also over the objections of Colombian prosecutors--which could not have happened without gross, covert pressure by the CIA. Uribe has meanwhile been given cushy academic sinecures at Georgetown and Harvard, and appointment to a prestigious international legal commission. All of this has very likely been done because of what Uribe knows about Bush Jr and the Bush Junta's crimes in Colombia.

Justice ain't in it.

[leveymg]

5. This deserves its own OP. Thanks for that info.

You might want to add that the Immigration Judge ignored that he could (and should) be extradited to Barbados from which the Cubana Air jet that Posada bombed took off and in whose waters the debris and bodies fell.

Barbados definitely doesn't torture anyone, except with steel drum music, rum drink hangovers and sunburns.

[UpInArms]

3. wonder if they were running with this crew?

Photograph dated 22 January 1963, Mexico City, at "La Reforma" nightclub. Donated to the public domain by Barry Seal's widow. Shown, clockwise from front left, are alleged to be: David Sánchez Morales (unconfirmed), Porter Goss (arm around Morales), Barry Seal, Guillermo Novo Sampol, Ignacio Novo Sampol; Carlos Alberto de Diego Aday, Richard Cain (unconfirmed), Arsenio Felipe de Diego Aday, Tosh Plumlee and Virgilio Gonzalez.

[gratuitous]

9. Fascinating

I look at that photo, I recognize the name Porter Goss, of course. Everyone seems to be happy and friendly, having a very good time (except perhaps Ignacio Novo Sampol, but that may just be because he's between drinks). But who is the fellow on the right, covering his face with his jacket? Tosh Plumlee. Hmmmm.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Cuban official testifies in ex-CIA agent's case

Cuban official testifies in ex-CIA agent's case
By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Will Weissert, Associated Press – 9 mins ago

EL PASO, Texas – A Cuban investigator has shown a Texas jury photographs of the blood stained lobby floor of a Havana hotel where a bomb exploded, killing an Italian tourist in 1997.

Lt. Col. Roberto Hernandez Caballero is testifying Wednesday as part of the U.S. government's effort to show that ex-CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles planned the bombing and then lied about it while seeking U.S. citizenship in 2005 in El Paso.

Eighty-two-year-old Posada faces perjury, obstruction and immigration fraud charges.

Hernandez headed a Cuban task force on a series of 1997 bombings at Havana hotels. Italian Fabio Di Celmo was killed when a bomb tore through the lobby of the Hotel Copacabana.

Posada admitted responsibility for the bombings in a 1998 interview with the New York Times but later recanted that.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110209/ap_on_re_us/us_cuban_militant

[Solly Mack]

6. k/r

[PufPuf23]

7. k/r nt

[Judi Lynn]

8. The Posada Trial Takes a Historic Turn

The Posada Trial Takes a Historic Turn
Peter Kornbluh
February 9, 2011

February 9—In El Paso, Texas, the perjury trial of the infamous violent Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles took a historic turn today. For the first time in a long dramatic history dominated by hostility and aggression, US government prosecutors formally presented evidence of terrorism committed against Cuba in a court of law—against one of its own former CIA operatives. Even more extraordinary, the evidence comes in the form of a Cuban Ministry of Interior investigator explaining photographs and police reports to the jury relating to a series of explosions in Havana hotels, including the Hotel Copacabana which killed a young Italian businessman Fabio Di Celmo on September 4, 1997. “Cuba Cooperating in US case against ex-CIA agent,” reads tomorrow’s news headlines.

The godfather of anti-Castro Cuban violence over the last four decades, Posada is being prosecuted for immigration fraud relating to how he illegally entered the United States in March 2005. But the Obama Justice Department added three counts of perjury relating to a far more important crime: Posada’s role in a series of seven bombings that rocked Havana hotels and other tourist sites between April and September 1997. “The defendant is alleged to have lied about his involvement in planning the bombings in Havana,” state court filings by the Justice Department’s Counterterrorism Division. “The United States intends to prove that the bombings in Cuba actually occurred.”

This week marks the first time that concrete evidence is being presented to the jury on how those bombings took place and the damage they wrought. The jury has been shown photographs taken by Cuban authorities of the bloodstained floor of the hotel. Portions of a Cuban investigative study, known as the “Volcan report,” which discusses the cause of, and circumstances surrounding Fabio Di Celmo’s death, are due to be introduced as evidence during the testimony of Major Roberto Hernandez Caballero—he was Cuba’s lead detective on the hotel bombing investigation—who took the stand today.

The importance of this moment in US-Cuban relations cannot be overstated. Posada was originally trained in demolitions by the US military and put on the CIA payroll in 1965 to train and supervise other exile groups in sabotage, explosives and violent operations. Declassified CIA and FBI intelligence reports, posted on the website of the National Security Archive, identify him as a mastermind of a mid-air bombing of a Cuban jetliner that took the lives of all 73 men, women and children on board in October 1976. Most recently, Posada was arrested in Panama with a carload of C-4 and dynamite in what he admitted to U.S. officials was a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro at the Ibero-American summit in November 2000. By prosecuting him on charges related to his acts of terrorism, even if they are only perjury charges, the United States is effectively repudiating a dark past that its own Cold War officials and covert operatives set in motion.

More:
http://www.thenation.com/article/158439/posada-trial-takes-historic-turn