U.S. arrests former CIA terrorst

[alonzomourning23]

I was worried for a while, I mean what would it look like if we had to add the u.s. onto the list of nations that support terrorism?

Though, considering he did blow up some hotels, bombed a civilian plane that killed 73 people, and attempted to kill a national leader, I wonder why he is so rarely referred to as a terrorist in the media?........................................... Oh ya, how silly of me, he's not muslim.

Accused Cuban bomber arrested in Miami

By Frances Kerry | May 17, 2005

MIAMI (Reuters) - U.S. authorities on Tuesday arrested a Cuban exile who slipped into the country in March and is wanted by Venezuela over the bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people nearly 30 years ago.

Luis Posada Carriles, 77, a former CIA collaborator and anti-communist activist who has sought political asylum in the United States, was arrested in Miami just hours after he emerged from hiding to give a series of media interviews.

Posada's presence on its soil has presented the United States with the dilemma of how to reconcile its sympathy for politically influential Cuban exiles with its tough stance against terrorism suspects after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

Cuban President Fidel Castro, who accused Washington of double standards in its war on terrorism, led about a million Cubans in a protest march in Havana on Tuesday demanding that the United States act against Posada.

"Bush, fascist, capture the terrorist," the crowd chanted.

"Today, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took Mr. Luis Posada Carriles into custody, pending review of his immigration status," the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement, adding that it had 48 hours to decide on Posada's status.

The government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a close ally of Castro who is hostile to the United States, has asked the Bush administration to extradite Posada to face trial for the 1976 bombing of the Cuban plane off Barbados.

Venezuelan Interior Minister Jesse Chacon called on Washington to honor a bilateral extradition treaty and deliver Posada. "This person is a terrorist, there is no other name for him ... the ball is in Mr. Bush's court," Chacon said.

Posada's lawyer, Eduardo Soto, told reporters his client dropped his asylum petition on Tuesday before his arrest and had intended to leave the country. "His intention was to abandon the United States and they simply could have let him go ...," Soto said.

But he added that he intended to immediately renew Posada's asylum application in light of the arrest.

The Homeland Security department statement threw into question whether the United States would approve Venezuela's extradition request. "Under certain circumstances, there are additional legal restrictions on removal due to international treaty obligations," it said.

"As a matter of immigration law and policy, ICE does not generally remove people to Cuba, nor does ICE generally remove people to countries believed to be acting on Cuba's behalf.

One option for Washington would be to turn over Posada to a country other than Venezuela so he would not be sent to Cuba.

Asked if Posada could be taken to a detention center at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay where than 500 foreign terrorism suspects are being held, Soto said, "There is that possibility."

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque declined to comment on the arrest when asked about it by reporters.

In five weeks, Castro has spoken 16 times about Posada in live television broadcasts lasting up to four hours, his most intense campaign since the successful battle for the return of shipwreck victim Elian Gonzalez five years ago.

Communist-run Cuba is one of six countries designated a state sponsor of terrorism by the State Department, but Havana denies it supports international terrorism. Castro has accused his longtime ideological enemy, Washington, of hypocrisy in the Posada case.

Posada's media interviews were seen as likely to put pressure on the U.S. government to clearly state its position.

In an interview with the Miami Herald, Posada denied any involvement in the Cuban airline bombing, but would neither confirm nor deny whether he was involved in a series of hotel bombings in Cuba in 1997 that killed an Italian citizen.

In addition to the Miami Herald interview, Posada appeared before his arrest before other Miami media and acknowledged his presence could pose a problem for Washington.

"If my petition for political asylum could create any problem for the government of the United States of America, I am willing to reconsider that petition," he said.

Posada, a Venezuelan citizen who lived there at the time of the 1976 plane bombing, was arrested in Venezuela more than 20 years ago but escaped from prison without being convicted. (Additional reporting by Deborah Charles in Washington, Jane Sutton and Jim Loney in Miami, Anthony Boadle in Havana and Pascal Fletcher in Caracas)

http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2005/05/17/accused_cuban_bomber_arrested_in_miami/

Some history on him

Declassified US government documents show that a man suspected of involvement in the bombing of a Cuban passenger plane worked for the CIA.

Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban-born Venezuelan and anti-Castro dissident, was an agent and informer.

The papers also reveal that an FBI informer "all but admitted" that Mr Posada was one of those behind the 1976 bombing that killed 73 people.

Mr Posada, who denies any involvement, is said to be seeking asylum in the US.

His lawyer says his client, thought to be in hiding in the Miami area, deserves US protection because of his long years of service to the country.

US officials say they have no evidence that Mr Posada is in the country, and add that they would deal with an asylum application from him as they would any other.

No conviction

The documents, released by George Washington University's National Security Archive, show that Mr Posada, now in his 70s, was on the CIA payroll from the 1960s until mid-1976.

One FBI report quoted a confidential source as saying that Mr Posada was one of several people who met at least twice at a hotel in Caracas, allegedly to discuss bombing a Cubana airlines plane.

The report recommended that no action be taken on the information, as it would compromise its source.

Mr Posada was arrested in Venezuela after the bombing, but was not convicted before he escaped from prison. The US documents show that he later went to central America, where he joined the covert US operation, led by Lt Col Oliver North, to rearm the anti-communist Contra guerrillas.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4535661.stm

You can also read the fox news article (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,156792,00.html), if you want to know how he's really just a misunderstood freedom fighter who made a few mistakes.

 

[1modernboy]

So the question we must ask ourselves is who do we hate more? Terrorists or Commies?

Or, I suppose we could simply redefine "terrorism" so as not to include actions taken against Cuba and supported by the CIA?