Luis Posada Carriles

[John Simkin]

Luis Posada Carriles, the former CIA contract agent, is one of the few men alive who probably knows who killed JFK.

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

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.

For Cuba, where Posada is public enemy number one, having its day in court is also a turning point in a longstanding effort to collaborate with US officials to put Posada behind bars. Cuban authorities have been forced to set aside their understandable suspicion that the trial is for all for show, not for justice. (After all, how can the United States, which purports to be the leader in the campaign to fight international terrorism, prosecute one of the world’s most infamous terrorists only on perjury charges?) Since Posada popped up in Miami some six years ago, Cuban authorities have repeatedly welcomed teams of FBI investigators and Justice Department lawyers to Havana. They turned over almost 1,500 pages of investigative records for use in the trial and made Posada’s accomplices, now in prison in Cuba, available for interrogation. And they have sent three witnesses to El Paso—another police investigator and a forensic doctor to present the autopsy of the murdered Italian to the jury—who have been waiting for over a week to testify.

If this unprecedented level of Cuban judicial support helps convict the 82-year old Posada and he spends the rest of his natural life behind bars, the United States and Cuba will have arrived at a new level of cooperation and collaboration on fighting terrorism. More importantly, together Washington and Havana will have turned a page on the dark history of US-sponsored violence against the Cuban revolution and Washington can begin what President Obama refers to as “a new chapter” in US relations with Cuba.

[B. A. Copeland]

I am certain very powerful special interests may fight to make sure we do not get to learn much from him, IF he was willing to talk. Here is hoping for some kind of interview or knowledge about the JFK murder in any event.

I'd also wager that in the mainstream media, you will not learn much of Carriles' connection to the JFK assassination.

Edited February 12, 2011 by B. A. Copeland

[John Simkin]

In case you missed this:

Cuba has denounced as a "farce" the acquittal in the United States of Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA agent who is accused of terrorist attacks against the island.

The foreign ministry said Friday's verdict, which found the 83-year-old not guilty on all 11 counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and immigration fraud, showed the US continued to protect a known terrorist.

"This is an additional demonstration of the support and shelter the American authorities have historically given him," it said in a statement over the weekend.

A jury in El Paso, Texas cleared Posada Carriles after deliberating for just three hours, an unexpectedly swift climax to a closely watched 13-week trial which cast fresh light on the octogenarian's lengthy career as an anti-communist agent. The defendant, a hero to militant anti-Castro exiles, hugged his lawyers and told reporters he was grateful to the US, the court and the jury for what he said was a fair trial.

"What happened here should serve as an example for justice in my country, Cuba, which is unfortunately in the hands of a dictator."

Posada Carriles, who as a student came into contact with a young Fidel Castro, opposed the revolutionary government which seized power in 1959 and three years later joined a CIA-backed invasion by Cuban exiles.

The attack flopped but he escaped, was trained in sabotage by US handlers and spent the next decades plotting to kill Castro and other leftwing targets in the region.

He moved to Venezuela where he was accused of masterminding the 1976 suitcase bombing of a Cubana Airlines jet that killed 73 people, including the national fencing team. Months earlier his links with the CIA were severed, according to declassified US documents.

Posada Carriles escaped from a Venezuelan jail in 1985, where he spent eight years awaiting trial for the atrocity, which he denied, and resumed plotting against Castro. In an interview with the New York Times he took responsibility for 1997 bomb attacks against Cuba's tourist industry, which killed an Italian tourist in a Havana hotel, but later recanted the confession.

He was arrested in possession of explosives in Panama in 2000 and charged with plotting to assassinate Castro at a regional summit. He served four years in jail before being pardoned by Panama's outgoing president, Mireya Moscoso, prompting accusations of political cronyism between Panama, Cuban exiles in Miami and the Bush administration.

In 2005 Posada Carriles surfaced in Miami. The US refused Cuban and Venezuelan extradition requests, claiming he would not receive a fair trial in either country. Caracas and Havana accused the US of hypocrisy in allowing the region's most notorious terrorist to live freely and openly while amid the post 9/11 "war on terror".

Soon afterwards US authorities charged Posada Carriles with the relatively minor offences of lying to immigration officials about how he entered the US and his role in the Havana bombings. More than 20 prosecution witnesses testified in the court.

Jurors heard him speaking English in recordings by Ann Bardach, the New York Times journalist to whom he spoke about the bombings, despite later claiming he did not speak the language.

Observers expected convictions on at least some of the charges but the jury stunned prosecutors with a swift, unanimous and complete acquittal.

"We're obviously disappointed by the decision," said a justice department spokesman, Dean Boyd.

The head of Cuba's parliament, Ricardo Alarcon, accused the judge, Kathleen Cardone, of not allowing jurors to see crucial evidence.

"The stupid and shameful farce is over," he told AP. "There were things the jury did not know."

Venezuela's government denounced the trial and verdict as "theatre" and said Washington continued to shelter a mass murderer.

"The US government's protection of Posada Carriles has become an emblematic case of the US double standard in the international fight against terrorism," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Posada Carriles's lawyer said he planned to return to his home and family in Miami. Leaders of Miami's Cuban exile community said he should be left to live in peace and that it was time to look ahead, not backwards.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/10/luis-posada-cuba-denounces-us-acquittal-cia-agent?INTCMP=SRCH

[B. A. Copeland]

"The US government's protection of Posada Carriles has become an emblematic case of the US double standard in the international fight against terrorism," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

(emphasis mine)

There you have it, like Raoul. Still protected to this very day.

[John Simkin]

In April 2011 Bosch was released by the US authorities after he was found not guilty on all 11 counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and immigration fraud. The head of Cuba's parliament, Ricardo Alarcon, denounced the trial as a "shameful farce" and accused the judge, Kathleen Cardone, of not allowing jurors to see crucial evidence. He added: "There were things the jury did not know." Cardone, a district judge for the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. She joined the court in 2003 after being nominated by President George W. Bush.

[Scott Kaiser]

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Edited September 22, 2011 by Scott Kaiser

[William Kelly]

"The expert also cites the case of David Morales: "David Sánchez Morales is another CIA killer involved in the JFK assassination, who died under suspicious circumstances. He had secured his house with double alarm systems, but not against burglars. He confessed to a friend: 'It's my own guys I'm worried about. I know too damned much.' So it's possible that Posada could blackmail the Bush administration... given that fact, it wouldn't surprise me if he gets his asylum."

Luis Posada is another guy who is also found in my father's phone book, beneath his name and address, in the phone book, is the word "Dallas". I don't see were I can attach the page for you to review, and if someone would help me figure out what I'm doing wrong. I would be more then happy to post it for you. In short, Luis was in Dallas the day of the assassination. And knows more then we think. I figured it out folks!

That address is apparently in Grand Prairie. Does anybody have a make on Lewis Lecor?

1031 Northeast 27th Street, Grand Prairie, Dallas, TX - Google Maps

[Bernice Moore]

LUIS POSADA

[Scott Kaiser]

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Edited September 22, 2011 by Scott Kaiser

[William Kelly]

How do you know that Louis Lecor is Luis Posada Carriles?

[Scott Kaiser]

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Edited September 22, 2011 by Scott Kaiser

[Scott Kaiser]

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Edited September 22, 2011 by Scott Kaiser

[Scott Kaiser]

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Edited September 22, 2011 by Scott Kaiser

[Scott Kaiser]

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Edited September 22, 2011 by Scott Kaiser

[Scott Kaiser]

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Edited September 22, 2011 by Scott Kaiser