Luis Posada Carriles

[Tim Gratz]

Dawn, no one "here" may "buy" the idea, but it is held, as you know, by Joseph Califano and Alexander Haig, both of whom worked on the Kennedys' campaign against Castro, and had access to confidential information you will probably never see in your lifetime. Of course, the fact that people with far more knowledge and information than you have believe that makes no difference to you whatsoever, since their opinion does not fit your "view of the world". I am sure you are aware of the expression "preaching to the choir"; this is, I suspect, the exact opposite: like if you argued a criminal defense to twelve jurors each of whom was a member of law enforcement! But, oh well. . . hopefully, something will happen yet in our lifetime so that the truth will out.

Edited May 4, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Mark Knight]

Tim, I hope you don't get discouraged in following this line of investigation. I still believe that SOME level of participation by pro-Castro forces, whether under the direction of Castro's government or not, is something that has NOT been 100% ruled out as at least a partial factor in the assassination. And as long as it is not an IMpossibility, the theory is still in play.

While I personally don't believe that it was the DECISIVE factor in the assassination, I don't think that it's out of the realm of possibility. Your research in this area actually frees others of us to pursue other areas of our own curiosity in the matter, so just because some may suggest that your work is a waste of time and energy, don't get the impression that EVERYONE thinks that way.

As I say, until you can rule OUT a theory, it's still a valid theory. Improbability doesn't necessarily translate to impossibility--on ANY theory--despite what some here might contend. And whenever someone tries to shut down ANY area of discussion, I'm reminded of McAdams and Posner and anyone else who thinks that all of the relevant evidence has already been seen...what are THEY trying to hide? The truth?

[Ron Ecker]

I am still of the opinion that if Castro wanted to get rid of JFK, he didn't have to do it himself. Anti-Castro exiles were involved in the hit. I'm sure there was some chatter about it ahead of time (they couldn't even resist telling Rose Cheramie about it before throwing her out of the car), and Castro's spies in the exile community would have found out about it and passed the word to Havana. All Castro had to do was wait, then tell the visiting reporter when it happened, "This is bad news."

Ron

[Ryan Crowe]

Just read this on Yahoo news....Thought I would add it to this thread...

Back to Story - Help

Cuban Terrorism Suspect Seeks U.S. Asylum By GEORGE GEDDA, Associated Press Writer

2 hours, 15 minutes ago

A Cuban exile long regarded as a violent opponent of Cuban President Fidel Castro has applied for asylum in the United States, a government official said Monday.

Luis Posada Carriles, a suspect in the bombing of a Cuban passenger plane in 1976, reportedly slipped into South Florida several weeks ago but the Bush administration says it cannot confirm his whereabouts. Posada, a former senior officer of the Venezuelan intelligence service, denies involvement in the bombing, which killed 73 people, including 24 members of Cuba's national fencing team.

To be eligible for political asylum, Posada must prove that he has a well-founded fear of persecution in his native country, said a Department of Homeland Security official said.

Castro has called Posada "the most famous and cruel terrorist of the Western Hemisphere," and he has repeatedly demanded Posada's extradition to Venezuela, where authorities want him for the 1976 bombing.

The official, asking not to be identified, said consideration of asylum requests includes national security and law enforcement criteria. A person who seeks asylum need not be in the presence of a U.S. government official when applying.

Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon said Monday in Havana that Posada "learned to kill" during a Cold War-era stint with the CIA in the 1960's.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Monday that no extradition request from Venezuela for Posada had been received.

"In terms of where he presently is, I think it's fair to say we don't know," Casey said. Posada's Miami lawyer, Eduardo Soto, confirmed at a news conference last month that the Cuban had arrived clandestinely into the United States.

Casey declined to discuss Posada's past, saying only that the United States "has no interest in allowing anyone with a criminal background to enter the United States."

Venezuela's vice president criticized the United States on Monday. "The protection that the U.S. government is giving to a terrorist like Posada Carriles is the denial of all (President) Bush's speeches against terrorism," Jose Vicente Rangel said.

"Terrorism has to be fought globally, or we will fall into the ambiguity that the United States has shown, not just in the Posada case, but in the terrorist aggression of a terrorist government like the (U.S.) government when it invades countries," he added.

___

[Tim Gratz]

From the May 9, 2005 New York Times (not the entire article)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Cuban exile long regarded as a violent opponent of Cuban President Fidel Castro has applied for asylum in the United States, a government official said Monday.

Luis Posada Carriles, a suspect in the bombing of a Cuban passenger plane in 1976, reportedly slipped into South Florida several weeks ago but the Bush administration says it cannot confirm his whereabouts. Posada, a former senior officer of the Venezuelan intelligence service, denies involvement in the bombing, which killed 73 people, including 24 members of Cuba's national fencing team.

To be eligible for political asylum, Posada must prove that he has a well-founded fear of persecution in his native country, said a Department of Homeland Security official said.

Castro has called Posada ''the most famous and cruel terrorist of the Western Hemisphere,'' and he has repeatedly demanded Posada's extradition to Venezuela, where authorities want him for the 1976 bombing.

The official, asking not to be identified, said consideration of asylum requests includes national security and law enforcement criteria. A person who seeks asylum need not be in the presence of a U.S. government official when applying.

Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon said Monday in Havana that Posada ''learned to kill'' during a Cold War-era stint with the CIA in the 1960's.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Monday that no extradition request from Venezuela for Posada had been received.

''In terms of where he presently is, I think it's fair to say we don't know,'' Casey said. Posada's Miami lawyer, Eduardo Soto, confirmed at a news conference last month that the Cuban had arrived clandestinely into the United States.

Casey declined to discuss Posada's past, saying only that the United States ''has no interest in allowing anyone with a criminal background to enter the United States.''

Venezuela's vice president criticized the United States on Monday. ''The protection that the U.S. government is giving to a terrorist like Posada Carriles is the denial of all (President) Bush's speeches against terrorism,'' Jose Vicente Rangel said.

''Terrorism has to be fought globally, or we will fall into the ambiguity that the United States has shown, not just in the Posada case, but in the terrorist aggression of a terrorist government like the (U.S.) government when it invades countries,'' he added.

[Mark Knight]

New item today in Associated Press news:

Cuban Hiding in U.S. Denies Role in Attack

May 17, 2005 10:55 AM EDT

MIAMI - An anti-Castro Cuban seeking asylum in the United States gave an interview denying any involvement in a 1976 attack on a Cuban airliner but declined to deny a role in 1997 bombings of Cuban tourist sites, The Miami Herald reported Tuesday.

Luis Posada Carriles, who is being sought by Cuba and Venezuela, has been in hiding in the U.S. He was interviewed last Wednesday in a surreptitious meeting at a luxury condominium, the newspaper said.

Posada, 77, is wanted in Venezuela on charges of involvement in blowing up a civilian Cuban jetliner in 1976, killing 73 people. He escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985 while facing a retrial in the bombing.

Cuban President Fidel Castro is waging a campaign demanding Posada's arrest. Early Tuesday, he led a demonstration of hundreds of thousands of Cubans who filed past the American mission in Havana.

Posada, former CIA operative and Venezuelan security official, has been bent on toppling Castro for 40 years. He applied for political asylum after arriving in Miami in March following an illegal trip through Central America.

Recently declassified federal documents link Posada to planning meetings with airline bomb plotters.

"They accused me of being the intellectual author of fabricating a weapon of war and of treason to the homeland. No one saw me make a bomb," Posada said in the two-hour interview. "Sincerely, I didn't know anything about it."

Despite previous admissions, Posada refused to confirm or deny playing a role in the 1997 Cuban bombings that killed an Italian tourist. "Let's leave it to history," he said.

"I feel that I've committed many errors, more than most people," he said. "But I've always believed in rebellion, in the armed struggle. I believe more and more every day that we will triumph against Castro."

U.S. officials have said they would like to interview Posada but are not actively seeking him because there are no American warrants for his arrest.

Posada said he hid at first when he reached Miami but is living more openly now. He said he has been recognized at a market and a doctor's office.

FBI documents identify one of the informants against Posada as the late Ricardo "Monkey" Morales Navarrete, who admitted being part of the bomb plot. Posada has said Morales identified himself as the mastermind.

"I never would have participated in any conspiracy with Monkey Morales," Posada said. "I'd have to be crazy, my God! Everything Monkey said had a double intention. He was not credible."

Copyright 2005 Associated Press.

[Ryan Crowe]

Fox news says he has just been takin into custody

[Ryan Crowe]

Facing growing international pressure, federal immigration authorities Tuesday detained a Cuban militant linked to a deadly 1976 airliner bombing and other acts of anti-Fidel Castro violence who has been seeking asylum in the United States.

Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative and Venezuelan security official, was detained by the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday afternoon, said Dean Boyd, spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Cuban President Fidel Castro's calls for Posada's arrest by U.S. authorities was echoed by thousands in protests in Havana on Tuesday. Castro claims Posada was brought to Miami from Mexico on a shrimp boat, but Posada says he entered the United States through Mexico and came to Miami on a bus.

Earlier Tuesday, Posada told reporters he was willing to leave the United States and his asylum request and go to another country, but he was detained before he could leave, said Santiago Alvarez, his friend and benefactor. Posada had planned to go to a Central American country, Alvarez said. He would not say which country.

"There's no reason for them to detain him, but that's the part of the process in this country," Alvarez said.

Posada, 77, is wanted by Venezuela for escaping from prison in 1985 while awaiting a prosecutor's appeal of his second acquittal in the Cubana Airlines bombing, which killed 73 people when it crashed near Barbados. Recently declassified CIA and FBI documents quoted informants as linking Posada with planning meetings for those bombings.

Venezuela recently approved a formal extradition request and Castro has made numerous televised speeches calling Posada a terrorist and accusing the United States of a double standard in the war on terror. The United States and Venezuela have an extradition treaty.

"The majority of Americans would never be in favor of harboring a terrorist," said Wayne Smith, a former U.S. envoy to Cuba who now heads the Cuba program at the Washington-based Center for International Policy.

If the United States were to grant asylum, Smith added, "we will be seen as hypocrites and as being against terrorism only when is suits our purposes."

Posada and three others were pardoned last August by Panama's then-president for their role in an alleged assassination plot in 2000 against Castro during a conference in Panama. Posada's whereabouts had been unknown until he surfaced in Miami in March after entering the United States through Mexico.

Posada was also connected to a series of 1997 bombings of tourists sites in Cuba, one of which killed an Italian tourist. Posada refused to confirm or deny involvement in those attacks, telling The Miami Herald in an interview published Tuesday, "Let's leave it to history."

"I feel that I've committed many errors, more than most people," he said. "But I've always believed in rebellion, in the armed struggle. I believe more and more every day that we will triumph against Castro. Victory will be ours."

[Duncan Campbell]

A commercial airliner is blown up in midair with the loss of many lives. Nearly 30 years later, a man accused of organising the bombing is traced to Miami. With the "war on terror" in full swing, it would seem likely that the American authorities would leap into action to arrest the suspect and dispatch him for trial to the country where the plot was hatched.

Luis Posada is a 77-year-old Cuban exile who has been involved in many attempts to overthrow Fidel Castro since the abortive Bay of Pigs operation in 1961. He has long been seen as a prime suspect in the 1976 midair bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. He was arrested in Caracas many years ago and charged with the offence but escaped from custody in suspicious circumstances. He has since made his way to Florida, a place that has, over the years, become something of a rest-home for the heavy-mob enforcers of Latin American military dictatorships.

The Venezuelan supreme court approved an extradition request for Mr Posada last month. Yesterday, after he cheerfully gave a newspaper interview in Miami, saying he did not feel it was necessary to lie low any more, he was finally detained by immigration officials. The department of homeland security now has 48 hours to make an official determination of his immigration status. Posada, meanwhile, has already let it be known through his lawyers that he is now seeking asylum in the US.

The Posada affair is top of the agenda in Cuba, where Fidel Castro has this week been repeatedly calling on President Bush to act decisively against terrorism by arresting Mr Posada and deporting him for trial. The case is an important one because at its heart is the belief, held in many parts of the world, that the US has one standard of morality for its allies and another for its enemies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1486446,00.html

[John Simkin]

This report has just been posted on the BBC website:

An anti-communist militant accused of bombing a Cuban airliner in 1976 has been held in the US.

Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles is wanted by both Cuba and Venezuela in connection with the attack.

The arrest comes after hundreds of thousands of Cubans marched in Havana to urge the US to hand him over.

Mr Posada Carriles was reportedly smuggled into the US earlier this year. He denies any involvement in the plane bombing, which killed 73 people.

US immigration authorities seized Mr Posada Carriles after he gave media interviews in Miami for the first time since he surfaced.

The US homeland security department said it had 48 hours to determine his immigration status.

Mr Posada Carriles has been been linked to a series of attacks on Cuban interests over the last four decades.

He was released from prison in Panama last year after the outgoing president pardoned him over an alleged plot to kill President Fidel Castro in 2000.

Recently declassified documents show Mr Posada Carriles used to work for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Venezuela has applied to the US for the extradition of Mr Posada Carriles, who is a Venezuelan citizen.

Washington officials had said they had no knowledge of his whereabouts, which prompted Mr Castro to accuse the Bush administration of hypocrisy.

He said the US "war on terror" would lose credibility if Washington refused to act against an alleged terrorist on its own soil.

The 78-year-old leader led protesters past the US offices in the Cuban capital on Tuesday.

Demonstrators marched in groups of schoolchildren, doctors, soldiers and students, wearing Cuba's national colours of red, white and blue.

Correspondents say the case has put the Bush administration in a difficult position, forcing it to choose between the wishes of its politically powerful supporters in the Cuban exile community and its promise to pursue suspected terrorists.

[Mark Knight]

You must also be aware that Cuba is on the official US list of terrorist nations; therefore, the questions becomes "do we release an alleged terrorist to a terrorist nation?"

The US is caught in a trap of its own making. If they capitulate to Castro's demands to extradite Posada, they are, according to their own list, giving in to a demand of a terrorist nation. But if they free Posada, they will be releasing an alleged terrorist.

Most likely scenario, IMHO, is that the US authorities will release Posada to some other government, with the "suggestion" that he be returned to either Venezuela or Cuba...that takes Bush administration off the hook, and places Posada's fate in the hands of others, without the US government actually setting him free themselves. In that way, the Bush administration avoids an "either/or" choice, and this weasel solution will probably be legally acceptable but please no one.

So expect it to happen.

[John Simkin]

Jamie Wilson in Washington

Friday May 20, 2005

The Guardian

Luis Posada, the ageing anti-Castro militant wanted in Venezuela and Cuba over an airliner bombing 30 years ago, was yesterday charged with illegally entering the US, in a case that has led to claims of double standards by Washington in the war on terror.

Mr Posada, 77, who worked for the CIA during its war against leftwing radicals in Latin America, was arrested on Tuesday after spending more than two months living in Miami.

Officials said yesterday that the Cuban exile, who admits entering the country illegally through Mexico in mid-March this year, would be held without bail until he appears before an immigration judge at a hearing scheduled for June 13. The decision leaves open the possibility that he could be deported to a third country other than Venezuela or Cuba.

The case has become an embarrassment for the Bush administration, which has been trying to reconcile the feelings of the large Cuban exile population in Florida - where the president's brother, Jeb Bush, is state governor - with its tough post-9/11 stance against terrorism suspects.

It has also provided ammu nition for America's more vehement international critics. Last night, the Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez denounced the US approach as "two-faced". "He is a self-confessed terrorist," Mr Chávez said. "The US has a choice: either send him to Venezuela or be seen by the world as protecting terrorism."

Mr Posada, who applied for political asylum after arriving in the US, was detained by immigration officials after he surfaced publicly for the first time to give a news conference in a Florida warehouse.

Hours earlier, the Cuban president, Fidel Castro, had led a crowd reportedly numbering hundreds of thousands past the US mission in the capital, Havana, and made a speech castigating Washington for hypocrisy over its handling of the case.

US authorities say Mr Posada has withdrawn his request for political asylum. But his lawyer, Eduardo Soto, said yesterday that his client claims he never lost permanent US legal residency, which he obtained in 1962, and should be given asylum.

He said Mr Posada, who claims he would face persecution in Cuba and Venezuela, would "vigorously oppose" deportation and would seek bail.

Mr Posada is being held at a detention facility in Texas, and Mr Soto said he would ask for the proceedings to be moved to Miami, where his client's wife and his 29-year-old son live. He left open the possibility that he would agree to move to a third country if an acceptable friendly state could be found. US law does not allow extradition to Cuba or to countries believed to be acting on its behalf.

Mr Posada was involved in numerous attempts to overthrow Mr Castro since fleeing the country in 1961, just in time to sign up with the CIA for the abortive Bay of Pigs operation.

In 1963 he joined the agency's officer candidate school, where he is said to have learned to build bombs, gather intelligence and spread propaganda.

In 1967 he moved to Venezuela, becoming a citizen and rising to lead the government's counter-intelligence service, a job he left in 1974.

When a Cubana Airlines aircraft blew up off the coast of Barbados on October 6 1976, killing all 73 people on board, suspicion immediately fell on Mr Posada. He was arrested and acquitted twice, but was held in custody pending appeals. Dressed as a priest, he escaped in 1985, apparently after bribing guards.

A state department intelligence brief issued after the aircraft bombing and made public on Wednesday revealed that Mr Posada told an informant weeks before the attack: "We are going to hit a Cuban airliner."

Venezuela formally requested his extradition earlier this month after officials under Mr Chávez reopened the case, seeking to try him for murder and treason. But US officials initially said they were not looking for Mr Posada because he was not wanted for a crime there.

The Venezuelan vice-president said yesterday his country was not seeking Mr Posada's extradition "for reasons of vengeance", or because of Venezuela's close ties with Cuba. "It's about the exercise of justice on the part of the Venezuelan state," he said, urging the US government to be "coherent" on the issue of terrorism. "There cannot be a good terrorism and a bad terrorism," he said.

Mr Posada, who survived an assassination attempt in Honduras in 1990 that scarred his face, has also been implicated in a string of bombings in Cuba in 1997. He was pardoned last year by the Panamanian president for his role in an alleged assassination plot against Mr Castro.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/st...1488245,00.html

[Tim Gratz]

John, granted there was a lot of public pressure but I assume you would give the Bush Administration credit for finally arresting this guy.

It will be interesting to watch this play out.

[John Simkin]

John, granted there was a lot of public pressure but I assume you would give the Bush Administration credit for finally arresting this guy.

I suppose George Bush deserves some credit from accepting the contradiction in his philosophy on wanting to track down terrorists. It was of course embarrassing that he has been refusing to take action against Luis Posada.

I suspect he will be dead before he ever testifies in a courtroom about what he knows about CIA funded terrorist attacks.

I see you have still not responded to my attack on Bush’s policy towards Uzbekistan. Are you waiting for Bush to change direction before commenting?

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3776

[Ryan Crowe]

I suspect he will be dead before he ever testifies in a courtroom about what he knows about CIA funded terrorist attacks.

For some reason I have a feeling he will have the flu very soon The can of worms he can open is way to dangerous to just send him on his way to Venezuela or Cuba to stand trial.