Posada is target of new criminal probes

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"One of the first things the businessman noticed about Luis Posada Carriles was that he spoke funny. Posada, who mumbled because of an old bullet wound in his jaw, frequently visited the businessman's Guatemala utility company in 1997 to meet with two co-workers.

The businessman grew suspicious after one of the workers told him about Cuban exile plans to assassinate Fidel Castro and after a Venezuelan politician confided that Posada, a CIA-trained explosives expert, was a ``very dangerous individual.''

Concerned that Posada was using his utility business to plot illicit activities, the businessman hid a transmitter in an office and overheard the two co-workers talk with Posada about placing a ''putty-like explosive'' in the shoes of Central Americans paid to pose as tourists on trips to Cuba.

Soon afterward, the businessman became a ''confidential source'' for the FBI's investigation into bombs that exploded at Cuban tourist sites in 1997, killing an Italian and wounding seven others.

The businessman, a Cuban-American engineer who set up the utility company in Guatemala City in 1996, could turn out to be the central figure in the Justice Department's rekindled criminal investigation of Posada. The probe is back on track -- despite the fact that the FBI field office in Miami destroyed evidence in 2003 about the initial Cuba bombing case."

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/15990057.htm

[upi402]

1. will we ever learn WHY the FBI destroyed the evidence?

oopsie?

[Judi Lynn]

3. That Miami bureau is very, VERY strange.

Who could call those people patriotic when they destroy evidence which is the property of the American government?

Former New York Times reporter, and author Ann Louise Bardach discussed the Miami FBI's destruction of files with Amy Goodman:

Tuesday, October 10th, 2006
Twilight of the Assassins: Why the U.S. Refuses to Prosecute the Cuban Exiles Luis Posada Carriles & Orlando Bosch For the 1976 Bombing of Cubana Airlines Flight 455

~snip~
AMY GOODMAN: Ann Louise Bardach, you write about the destruction of vital evidence in the Miami’s FBI bureau that severely hobbled the investigation of Posada. Who destroyed this evidence? What was it?

ANN LOUISE BARDACH: My sources inside the FBI -- well, actually, I have several sources around this and I want to be a little careful with this situation, but they are certainly firsthand sources -- were very dismayed, because sometime after 2002 the evidence in the evidence room of the Miami FBI was destroyed -- I understand, shredded. And this involved the original Western Union cables, the faxes -- original evidence. And most courts demand original evidence, not, you know, copies or facsimiles. And somebody made the decision to close the case. And this would be 2003, when Posada was, I think, fairly much in the news. That’s the year we think this happened.

But in order to decide to close a case -- because you cannot destroy evidence unless the case is closed -- somebody had to sign off from the U.S. attorney's office, the supervising officer at the FBI had to sign off, and the SAC, the Special Agent in Charge, had to sign off. And then the case is closed, and then you are able to destroy evidence. The files live forever, but the evidence gets destroyed. It’s actually called the bulky.

And we called the FBI for comment, when we were going to press, and I spoke to their spokesperson, and she says in the Atlantic Monthly piece that, “Look, you know, when we close a case, you know, we’re very overcrowded in that room, and we have to make room.” Now, we’re talking about paperwork. The evidence room also contains, like, machine guns or, you know, drugs that have been confiscated, etc. In the case of Posada, it really was paperwork. So you wonder how much space it was really taking up. And, as I understand it, it was put through the shredder, which would be the custom for paperwork. I really do think there has to be an investigation into this.
(snip/...)

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/10/1355231

[Judi Lynn]

2. Suddenly, an explanation surfaces for why the U.S. decided to keep

passengers from bringing liquids on board, claiming they could actually be explosives, only in THIS case, it was one of the U.S.-based terrorists who has worked for the CIA who was carrying dangerous materials like this! From the article:

Among the evidence cited in the sworn statement:

• In late August 1997, the businessman at the Guatemala utility company said he and a co-worker discovered ''what appeared to be explosive materials'' in the firm's office, where Posada regularly met with two other workers.

The businessman later told the FBI that the materials consisted of 22 transparent plastic tubes filled with a tan substance. They were labeled with the name of the manufacturer and ``explosivos de alto poder, extremadamente peligrosos'' -- high-power explosives, extremely dangerous.

• The businessman said he found funnels in the office that he thought were used to mix explosive materials with liquid inside shampoo bottles. He also found a diaper that may have been used to absorb the liquid in the bottles and yield the explosives.

The businessman then found a carrying case containing a note in Spanish, which said, ''The tyrant has to be eliminated, regardless of how many others are killed.'' Also found in the case: a note pad with Posada's name written on the first page.

• During the FBI's investigation of the 1997 Cuba bombings, agents collected records showing about $19,000 in wire transfers from the United States to ''Ramon Medina,'' one of Posada's aliases, in El Salvador and Guatemala between Oct. 30, 1996, and Jan. 14, 1998.
(snip/...)

Well, well, well. Hypocrisy rears its idiotic head again.

[Peace Patriot]

4. Posada is also wanted in Venezuela for the Cuban airlines bombing.

The Venezuelan government has repeatedly asked for his extradition from the U.S., so he can stand trial. And of course the Bush Junta just chuckles. It's hard to know what's going on with the FBI, since it's been under Bush-Cheney's rule for six years. The jury's still out, so to speak. Are they really investigating Posada, or putting on some kind of show--behind which he might be whisked into, say, Homeland Security custody, and given a new name and a nice hacienda in some Bush-friendly Banana Republic? (--there are still a few of those around). (Maybe the new Bush Cartel 200,00 acre paramilitary staging ground in Paraguay?)

In other words, I'll believe it when I see it. I'll grant there might be some good guys in our government--mostly heads down, biding their time, and some actively resisting the Junta (--that is, doing their jobs). (There sure seem to be some in the military.) But we would be fools to trust anything coming out of a Justice Dept. headed by Alberto Gonzales. We don't know what ill and byzantine motives might be behind their actions. The Bush Junta has so many of its own crimes to cover up, they could well be using prosecutions, strategically, to silence people, or screw up other investigations, or god knows what. (We've certainly seen them blow a number of terrorist investigations--and I think the FBI was involved in blowing the one in Italy, was it not? --as well as deliberately outing and disabling an entire CIA WMD counter-proliferation network.) So, be skeptical, I say. Try to read between the lines.

[Judi Lynn]

5. A DU'er suggested recently that maybe Bush won't EVER let him go outside

the country again, as they would be concerned that he could be taken by another country and tell them what he knows about his work as a CIA agent, an Iran/Contra operative, his completely unchecked work as an international terrorist, etc., etc., etc. which could lead to some very bad images of the U.S.

I'd never thought of that before, but it does make sense. He's a dangerous man, unless they keep him totally under the watchful eye of the U.S. gummint. It's a real shame, too: he needs to face some justice in his lifetime, just like other common criminals.