Luis Posada Carriles

[Guest John Gillespie]

http://www.independence.net/orlandobosch/

January 31, 2002

I'm sure we can come up with JEB as acronym...

Regards,

JG

[Lee Forman]

JEB

I think I got one: Just Either Bush.

I like, Jumped Early Buddy - in reference to the declaration of Martial Law in Florida...

But I don't want to derail Ron's thread, so I'll add links to 2 interesting docs.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153/19760622.pdf

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153/19761009.pdf

- lee

[Ron Ecker]

Other than Wim Dankbaar's claim that James Files saw Luis Posada Carriles in Dealey Plaza, is there any assassination literature that makes a case for a Posada role in that operaton?

Chauncey Holt provided a list of several people to whom he was to deliver false credentials, and Posada was among them.

I'm not referring to the two or three names that he mentions in his interview which is on Wim's site. This was an email or some other type document that included all the names, some of them misspelled. I believe it also included Masferrer and Echeverria.

I had this document and somehow lost it. I once asked if anyone else on the forum had the list, but no one responded. It is nevertheless out there, I just don't know where.

[Guest John Gillespie]

JEB

I think I got one: Just Either Bush.

I like, Jumped Early Buddy - in reference to the declaration of Martial Law in Florida...

But I don't want to derail Ron's thread, so I'll add links to 2 interesting docs.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153/19760622.pdf

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB153/19761009.pdf

- lee

_____________

JEB Redux:

Let's "Jail 'em Bushes" now....

(sorry, Lee, guess I'm having too much fun)

[Ron Ecker]

Don't count your elections before they're snatched.

[Lee Forman]

Don't count your elections before they're snatched.

Hey Ron.

Couldn't find that document you referred to earlier - found only references to Wim's audio tape and an interview with Escalante. Did find this one though - interesting.

- lee

[John Simkin]

Posada Carriles and the Kennedy assassination

By Deirdre Griswold

Published Jun 7, 2005 9:54 PM

http://www.workers.org/2005/us/posada-jfk-0616/

The case of Luis Posada Carriles, a known terrorist whom U.S. authorities have refused to extradite to Venezuela, reaches deep into the shadowy world of CIA covert action, especially against the Cuban Revolution.

There is also mounting evidence that Posada Carriles was connected to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and was in Dallas's Dealey Plaza the day the fatal shots were fired.

Posada Carriles spent nine years in prison in Venezuela for having masterminded the mid-air bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner in 1976, killing all 73 people aboard. The CIA is known to have bribed Venezuelan prison guards to arrange his escape in 1985. That is the year that George H.W. Bush became head of the CIA. One guard, now retired, recently described these CIA efforts on Venezuelan television.

Posada Carriles was also arrested and convicted in Panama in 2000 for entering the country with the intent of killing Cuban President Fidel Castro, who was attending an Ibero-American summit meeting there. But President Mireya Moscoso, in one of her last acts in office, pardoned Posada Carriles and three other convicted terrorists after they had spent just one year in jail.

Moscoso is part of the old political establishment that was returned to power in Panama after the U.S., under the same George H.W. Bush, by then the president, invaded the country in 1989. She spent many years in Miami, where she was close to leaders of the Cuban exile community who have worked with the CIA ever since the Cuban Revolution.

Moscoso's popularity in office plummeted to the lowest of any Panamanian president, and she now faces corruption charges. She gave all 72 Panamanian legislators expensive Cartier watches and jewelry right before a vote on the government's proposed budget. Her secretary admitted to having a freezer stuffed with thousands of dollars in cash. However, this friend of the Miami exile gang says Fidel Castro is behind the corruption charges. (Dictionary of Political Figures)

Even Congress saw a conspiracy

The nexus of Cuban counter-revolutionary exiles, the CIA and organized crime figures in the Kennedy assassination has long been known. Even though the official U.S. government position remains that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin, the majority of people here and around the world don't buy it. And the one investigation of the assassination by Congress--by the House Select Committee on Assassinations--found in its final report that "President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy."

Despite all the evidence showing the involvement of right-wingers, however, especially those who held Kennedy responsible for the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, the corporate media continue to deride "conspiracy theorists." They cite the Warren Commission as their authority--a commission that included former CIA Director Allen Dulles, the architect of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.

Many scholars have investigated the role of Operation 40 in the Kennedy assassination. Operation 40 was a special group inside the CIA set up with the authorization of the National Security Council right before the Bay of Pigs. Historian Arthur Schlesinger referred to it in a June 1961 memo to Richard Goodwin: "The ostensible purpose of Operation 40 was to administer liberated territories in Cuba. But the CIA agent in charge, a man known as Felix, trained the members of the group in methods of third degree interrogation, torture and general terrorism."

That man in charge was Felix Rodriguez, who in 1967 led the CIA squad that captured and then murdered Che Guevara in Bolivia. He took Che's Rolex watch and proudly displayed it to reporters afterwards. His Miami home is decorated with photos of himself and George H.W. Bush together.

Cuban view of Posada Carriles

Gen. Fabian Escalante, the former head of Cuban counter-intelligence, is author of "The Secret War: CIA Covert Operations Against Cuba, 1959-62," and "The Plot," both published by Ocean Press. In May of this year, he told interviewer Jean-Guy Allard about Posada Carriles's role in Operation 40 and the Kennedy assassination.

"Who in 1963 had the resources to assassinate Kennedy? Who had the means and who had the motives to kill the U.S. president?” asked Escalante. "CIA agents from Operation 40 who were rabidly anti-Kennedy. And among them were Orlando Bosch, Luis Posada Carriles, Antonio Veciana and Felix Rodriguez Mendigutia."

The testimony of Chauncey Holt, a self-confessed CIA operative and mob associate, backs this up. In a videotaped interview made shortly before he died, Holt identified Posada Carriles as one of the Cuban exiles who was in Dealey Plaza at the time of the Kennedy assassination.

In his interview with Allard, Escalante detailed the many CIA operations in Latin America that involved Cubans from this same group, originally trained by the CIA for the Bay of Pigs invasion. These included the coup against President Salvador Allende's government in Chile and the subsequent murder in Washington of former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier, as well as the Contra war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

Bush, Goss and Operation 40

In Escalante's view, it was the members of Operation 40 who had the training and the sharpshooting ability necessary to carry out the assassination of Kennedy. The Cuban counter-intelligence chief identified the North Americans in the group as David Morales, David Phillips, E. Howard Hunt, William Harvey, Frank Sturgis, Gerry Hemming, John Rosselli, "who was second head of the Chicago mafia at that time in '62," and Porter Goss. Goss is now head of the CIA, nominated by George W. Bush, son of the former CIA head.

In “Deadly Secrets,” authors Warren Hinkle and William Turner named Rafael 'Chi Chi' Quintero, Luis Posada Carriles, Felix Rodriguez and Frank Sturgis as members of Operation 40, under the overall control of E. Howard Hunt. Hunt and Sturgis later spent time in prison for the Watergate burglary and are believed to have been in Dallas the day Kennedy was assassinated.

The same cast of characters appears, again and again, committing acts of mayhem, murder and sabotage to keep Latin American countries under the control of U.S. corporate interests. And the same high-up political figures in the United States--with the Bush family at the top of the list--are their sponsors and protectors.

Today, the whole world is watching as the U.S. government, which has used the cry of "terrorism" to launch two bloody wars and to imprison, torture and murder untold numbers of Arab and Muslim people, tries to figure out what to do with Posada Carriles. He's a proven terrorist who has twice been sprung from jail and harbored by the invisible government of this country, the so-called "intelligence community." He is more than an embarrassment for the Bush administration.

One thing is for sure: they will never let him be questioned about his activities in an open forum where he could implicate key members of the U.S. ruling class and their political operatives.

Griswold was executive director of the Citizens' Committee of Inquiry, which carried out an independent investigation of the Kennedy assassination in the 1960s.

[John Simkin]

Posada Carriles and the Kennedy assassination

By Deirdre Griswold

Published Jun 7, 2005 9:54 PM

http://www.workers.org/2005/us/posada-jfk-0616/

The case of Luis Posada Carriles, a known terrorist whom U.S. authorities have refused to extradite to Venezuela, reaches deep into the shadowy world of CIA covert action, especially against the Cuban Revolution.

There is also mounting evidence that Posada Carriles was connected to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and was in Dallas's Dealey Plaza the day the fatal shots were fired.

Posada Carriles spent nine years in prison in Venezuela for having masterminded the mid-air bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner in 1976, killing all 73 people aboard. The CIA is known to have bribed Venezuelan prison guards to arrange his escape in 1985. That is the year that George H.W. Bush became head of the CIA. One guard, now retired, recently described these CIA efforts on Venezuelan television.

Posada Carriles was also arrested and convicted in Panama in 2000 for entering the country with the intent of killing Cuban President Fidel Castro, who was attending an Ibero-American summit meeting there. But President Mireya Moscoso, in one of her last acts in office, pardoned Posada Carriles and three other convicted terrorists after they had spent just one year in jail.

Moscoso is part of the old political establishment that was returned to power in Panama after the U.S., under the same George H.W. Bush, by then the president, invaded the country in 1989. She spent many years in Miami, where she was close to leaders of the Cuban exile community who have worked with the CIA ever since the Cuban Revolution.

Moscoso's popularity in office plummeted to the lowest of any Panamanian president, and she now faces corruption charges. She gave all 72 Panamanian legislators expensive Cartier watches and jewelry right before a vote on the government's proposed budget. Her secretary admitted to having a freezer stuffed with thousands of dollars in cash. However, this friend of the Miami exile gang says Fidel Castro is behind the corruption charges. (Dictionary of Political Figures)

Even Congress saw a conspiracy

The nexus of Cuban counter-revolutionary exiles, the CIA and organized crime figures in the Kennedy assassination has long been known. Even though the official U.S. government position remains that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin, the majority of people here and around the world don't buy it. And the one investigation of the assassination by Congress--by the House Select Committee on Assassinations--found in its final report that "President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy."

Despite all the evidence showing the involvement of right-wingers, however, especially those who held Kennedy responsible for the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, the corporate media continue to deride "conspiracy theorists." They cite the Warren Commission as their authority--a commission that included former CIA Director Allen Dulles, the architect of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.

Many scholars have investigated the role of Operation 40 in the Kennedy assassination. Operation 40 was a special group inside the CIA set up with the authorization of the National Security Council right before the Bay of Pigs. Historian Arthur Schlesinger referred to it in a June 1961 memo to Richard Goodwin: "The ostensible purpose of Operation 40 was to administer liberated territories in Cuba. But the CIA agent in charge, a man known as Felix, trained the members of the group in methods of third degree interrogation, torture and general terrorism."

That man in charge was Felix Rodriguez, who in 1967 led the CIA squad that captured and then murdered Che Guevara in Bolivia. He took Che's Rolex watch and proudly displayed it to reporters afterwards. His Miami home is decorated with photos of himself and George H.W. Bush together.

Cuban view of Posada Carriles

Gen. Fabian Escalante, the former head of Cuban counter-intelligence, is author of "The Secret War: CIA Covert Operations Against Cuba, 1959-62," and "The Plot," both published by Ocean Press. In May of this year, he told interviewer Jean-Guy Allard about Posada Carriles's role in Operation 40 and the Kennedy assassination.

"Who in 1963 had the resources to assassinate Kennedy? Who had the means and who had the motives to kill the U.S. president?” asked Escalante. "CIA agents from Operation 40 who were rabidly anti-Kennedy. And among them were Orlando Bosch, Luis Posada Carriles, Antonio Veciana and Felix Rodriguez Mendigutia."

The testimony of Chauncey Holt, a self-confessed CIA operative and mob associate, backs this up. In a videotaped interview made shortly before he died, Holt identified Posada Carriles as one of the Cuban exiles who was in Dealey Plaza at the time of the Kennedy assassination.

In his interview with Allard, Escalante detailed the many CIA operations in Latin America that involved Cubans from this same group, originally trained by the CIA for the Bay of Pigs invasion. These included the coup against President Salvador Allende's government in Chile and the subsequent murder in Washington of former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier, as well as the Contra war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

Bush, Goss and Operation 40

In Escalante's view, it was the members of Operation 40 who had the training and the sharpshooting ability necessary to carry out the assassination of Kennedy. The Cuban counter-intelligence chief identified the North Americans in the group as David Morales, David Phillips, E. Howard Hunt, William Harvey, Frank Sturgis, Gerry Hemming, John Rosselli, "who was second head of the Chicago mafia at that time in '62," and Porter Goss. Goss is now head of the CIA, nominated by George W. Bush, son of the former CIA head.

In “Deadly Secrets,” authors Warren Hinkle and William Turner named Rafael 'Chi Chi' Quintero, Luis Posada Carriles, Felix Rodriguez and Frank Sturgis as members of Operation 40, under the overall control of E. Howard Hunt. Hunt and Sturgis later spent time in prison for the Watergate burglary and are believed to have been in Dallas the day Kennedy was assassinated.

The same cast of characters appears, again and again, committing acts of mayhem, murder and sabotage to keep Latin American countries under the control of U.S. corporate interests. And the same high-up political figures in the United States--with the Bush family at the top of the list--are their sponsors and protectors.

Today, the whole world is watching as the U.S. government, which has used the cry of "terrorism" to launch two bloody wars and to imprison, torture and murder untold numbers of Arab and Muslim people, tries to figure out what to do with Posada Carriles. He's a proven terrorist who has twice been sprung from jail and harbored by the invisible government of this country, the so-called "intelligence community." He is more than an embarrassment for the Bush administration.

One thing is for sure: they will never let him be questioned about his activities in an open forum where he could implicate key members of the U.S. ruling class and their political operatives.

Griswold was executive director of the Citizens' Committee of Inquiry, which carried out an independent investigation of the Kennedy assassination in the 1960s.

[John Simkin]

Article from Escambray

http://www.escambray.cu/Eng/opinion/Opcarriles0607141209.htm

Was Posada Carriles an Agent?

By Reinaldo Taladrid Herrero

When the terrorist attack against the Cubana Airlines DC-8 took place on October 6, 1976, was Luis Posada Carriles [one of the two accused masterminds] a CIA agent or not?

This is key to the case because if Posada Carriles was an agent at that time then it would be impossible for the US government to say that it had nothing to do with the terrorist crime that killed 73 innocent persons when the aircraft blew up off the coast of Barbados.

The CIA says in its official response that it had broken its ties with Posada in February, 1976.

And, why did they supposedly severe the ties?

One might think that it was because Posada was a poorly performing agent, according to the parameters of the Central Intelligence Agency.

But that is not what some declassified CIA and FBI documents say.

Those documents, according to a series of articles in The New York Times in July 1998, could be seen in the following light:

During the decade of the 1970s, the House of Representative Select Committee on Assassinations was investigating several political assassinations, among them that of President John F. Kennedy.

By means of a Congressional mandate, that Committee's investigators obtained access to a large number of United States intelligence community documents. Among them were several from the CIA and the FBI where the names of Cuban émigrés appeared for a number of reasons related in one way or another with the Kennedy assassination.

The investigators took notes from those documents. But immediately afterwards they were again classified as Secret and to this day they remain in that category.

In 1998, The New York Times obtained access to the notes that several of the investigators of that House Committee took from the secret documents.

One of these notes, taken from a CIA document, makes mention of Posada Carriles:

"Posada was providing the Agency [CIA] and the FBI uninterruptedly with a torrent of valuable information about the activities of the Cuban exiles in Miami."

That has been a constant in Posada Carriles' career with the CIA and the FBI. He has always been a great informant of everything that his own henchmen were doing, including his Cuban colleagues in terrorist activities and of everything he learned about anyone, or about any activity in Miami or elsewhere. Posada has always reported in detail to those two US agencies.

Another example of this may be seen in the secret document dated October 8, 1976, sent by the Director of the FBI in Washington, under the category of a classified document with the "maximum level and priority", to 14 persons including "The Deputy Attorney General, the Secretary of State, the Director of the CIA, the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Secret Service."

In that document the following text may be read:

"Legat familiarized with Posada while he was (crossed out) and after his resignation, Posada continued in contact with Legat on rare occasions. The last time was on June 10, 1976, when Posada visited Legat's office to ask if the FBI was interested in Carlo Bordoni (Bufile 29168654: Oarfile 29/13). When they told him yes, Posada revealed that Bordoni had contracted two of his operatives as armed bodyguards in his home. That information was later forwarded by Legat (crossed out) who participated in the action through which Bordoni was arrested."

Legat is the abbreviation used for Legal Attache, which is the cover used by FBI officers that pose as diplomats at US embassies.

And Carlo Bordoni was the man that handled the scandalous secret operations of the Sindona Group in Italy, who, together with the Mafia, Vatican Bank branches, among others, were involved in serious financial and other types of crimes. Bordoni fled from Italy and hid in Venezuela, where he looked to hire bodyguards, and by chance, he hired them in the agency that Posada Carriles had opened when he left the DISIP, the Venezuelan Security and Intelligence agency.

According to notes taken by the House Select Committee on Assassinations and revealed by the NYT, it may have been because of this attitude that in two CIA assessments in 1965 and 1966 of their employee/agent, Luis Faustino Clemente Posada Carriles, they stated:

"he has a good character, is very trustworthy, conscious in matters related to Security." 1965

"his fulfillment of all the assigned tasks has been excellent." 1966

Thus, poor performance could not be the reason of the supposed break with the Agency.

And what happened after these evaluations?

According to the same The New York Times investigation, in 1967 "he achieves the position of Chief of Operations of the Venezuelan Intelligence, with the help of CIA references."

What he did in Venezuela for the Agency is already known, but at the end of 1975, according to the summaries of the CIA documents by the investigators of the House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations, it appears like a crisis developed between Posada and the Agency.

This is the way The New York Times, which had access to these summaries, describes the cause of these problems:

"...an intelligence report shows that Posada may be involved in the smuggling of cocaine from Colombia to Miami, by way of Venezuela, as well as the counterfeiting of US currency in Venezuela... the CIA decided not to confront Posada directly, so as not to compromise the investigations in progress. Posada was questioned and he was found to be guilty of only having bad friendships. Even after that, in February 1976, Agency officers decided to break off their ties with Posada. Mysteriously, the documents described worries related to pending tax matters."

Taxation matters!!!, but Posada was living legally in Venezuela for the previous 9 years.

But OK, if this is true, then Luis Posada Carriles’ income tax statement and the IRS form corresponding to 1975, or whatever he had pending, should be made public.

One of the CIA documents, drafted on October 13, 1976, just a few days after the Barbados terrorist action, and addressed to the FBI's Intelligence Division stated: "...Posada is an ex CIA agent. He was dismissed under amicable terms in July 1967, but in October of 1967, contact was re-established... we continue to hold occasional contacts with him."

If the CIA had severed its ties with Posada in February of 1976, for what purpose would it continue to maintain "occasional contacts"? If you decide to sever your ties with an agent, what does keeping "occasional contacts" mean?

In the synthesis of the CIA documents to which The New York Times had access, it is evident what type of "break" in its relations the Agency and Posada had between February and October of 1976.

A front page article in the July 12, 1998 edition of The New York Times states:

"During the following months, Posada passed information to the Agency. He alerted that Bosch and another Cuba exiles were conspiring against the nephew of the deposed leftwing President of Chile. In June of that year (1976) Posada called the CIA again to report plans by the exiles to blow up a Cuban airliner that was departing from Panama."

It is interesting to note that the CIA knew by means of the mouth of its agent (or according to them, their ex-agent at that moment) such serious information like the CORU organization of Orlando Bosch plans to blow up civilian airliners in mid-flight, and did nothing to stop it.

That's why, saying that there was a break in relations is something very strange. The agent remains in contact and informing, as he always did. Or would it be that Posada was not informing of what he was learning about, but that he was actually informing when the tasks that were given to him were fulfilled, those tasks that he always executed in an "excellent" manner, according to his CIA evaluation.

And if it wasn't that way, then what explanation can be given to the information on what the CIA did on October 7, 1976, the day after the Barbados crime. According to what is revealed by the notes taken by the House of Representative Select Committee on Assassinations investigators and that The New York Times published in its July 12, 1998 edition:

"The day after, the CIA made what it described as fruitless attempts to contact Posada."

Why in less than 24 hours [after the plane bombing] did the CIA already want to talk with Posada about Barbados?

Or is it that the CIA knew beforehand that Posada was linked to that terrorist attack?

But after February 1976, the date that the Agency says it broke its ties with Posada, this person not only maintained contact with the CIA, but also with the FBI, as can be demonstrated in the declassified document about the meeting that he held with an FBI officer in the United States embassy in Caracas (Legat) to inform about Carlo Bordoni June 10, 1976.

So that you may fully answer the question whether Posada Carriles was or wasn't an agent, we will continue next Monday with an analysis of what happened after Posada was imprisoned, why he escaped, where he went, and what was the mission assigned to him.

This may help for you to draw your own conclusions.

[Scott Deitche]

Posada Carriles and the Kennedy assassination

By Deirdre Griswold

John Rosselli, "who was second head of the Chicago mafia at that time in '62," "

Well not to nitpick, but this is simply not true.

As for Posada, the DEA linked him to Santo Trafficante Jr.'s "Cuban Mafia" in the late 60's and early 70's. I do not have a lot on thier contacts and I suspect by the mid-late 1970's that Santo was out of that loop.

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

Just a quick update of what's been happening in the quest to avoid bringing Luis Posada Carriles to justice. The following is from today's Miami Herald:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/15274881.htm

THE POSADA CARRILES CASE

6 nations refused to take PosadaAs Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles asked a federal magistrate to release him, the U.S. government revealed that at least six other countries had refused to take him in.

BY ALFONSO CHARDY

achardy@MiamiHerald.com

EL PASO - The U.S. government revealed Monday that it has asked six countries, including Mexico and Canada, to take Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles -- but they all refused.

The disclosure came during a two-hour hearing in federal court, in which an elegantly attired Posada asked U.S. Magistrate Norbert Garney to free him from immigration detention. Posada, 78, has been in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in an El Paso detention facility since immigration officers detained him in Miami-Dade County on May 17, 2005.

Venezuela and Cuba accuse the CIA-trained Posada of terrorism, including the bombing of a passenger jet in 1976 that killed 73 people. Posada has long denied involvement.

Monday was the first time the U.S. government has publicly disclosed the number and names of foreign countries it has approached in an effort to remove Posada from the United States. An El Paso immigration judge last year prohibited his deportation to Cuba or Venezuela but ordered his expulsion to any other country willing to take him.

Besides Canada and Mexico, the other countries that rejected Posada were Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Eduardo Soto, Posada's lead attorney, told Garney that the government's disclosure -- made by an ICE officer called as a witness -- proves the United States cannot deport Posada and, thus, he should be released. Failure to do so, Soto added, would violate the 2001 U.S. Supreme Court decision against indefinite detention of foreign nationals who cannot be deported.

Ethan Kanter, a Justice Department attorney, who represented the U.S. government at the hearing, asked Garney to deny Posada's request for release because efforts to expel him are continuing and because the high court's 2001 ruling allowed for the indefinite detention of detainees deemed a ''danger to the community.'' An ICE letter to Posada in March said he continued to ''present a danger to the community'' and ``a risk to the national security of the United States.''

Garney told Posada that he would issue his decision later. Felipe Millan, an El Paso attorney retained by Posada, said he expected Garney's ruling in the next few days.

Posada was charged with being illegally in the country and placed in deportation proceedings. The ICE letter listed all of the charges and allegations against Posada outside the United States. These include the bombing of a Cuban jetliner off Barbados in 1976, the bombing of hotels and tourist spots in Cuba in 1997 and 1998 and a thwarted assassination plot against Fidel Castro in Panama in 2000. Posada has denied all the allegations.

Posada's daughter, Janet Arguello, 35, was among a small group of supporters at the hearing. Outside the courtroom, Arguello wiped away tears as she spoke about her elderly father.

''He is getting old . . . and he is suffering from a heart condition,'' Arguello said, adding that her father had fainted several times while in detention in El Paso. ``My fervent hope is that he spend his last years in freedom, with his family.''

The hearing was the first in Posada's efforts in federal court to obtain freedom. Though he won protection in immigration court from removal to Cuba or Venezuela, ICE has decided to keep him in custody. Posada was born in Cuba but is a naturalized Venezuelan citizen.

Soto said if the ruling goes against Posada, then he would appeal all the way to the Supreme Court if ''necessary.'' If the case goes that far, it could be the first test of the high court's 2001 ruling exemption for ''dangerous'' detainees.

The 2001 ruling said foreign nationals who cannot be deported must be released under conditions of supervision no later than six months after deportation orders have become final and there is no likelihood any country will take them. But the ruling indicated that exceptions could be made for ``specially dangerous individuals.''

Even if Garney decides Posada should be released, his ruling may not result in immediate freedom. It would amount to a recommendation to U.S. District Judge Philip Martinez who is overseeing Posada's lawsuit against the federal government seeking release.

[Ron Ecker]

I wonder how much Posada has been paid to endure all this silently. I can envision a scene in which Karl Rove goes into Bush's office and says, "There's a cancer growing on the presidency. This guy could cost us up to a million dollars." And Bush then says, "I know where we could get a million dollars. We could get it tonight. The important thing is to take care of this Posada. He knows a hell of a lot of things."

[Wim Dankbaar]

Looks like Posada will be released:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/15496239.htm

MMIGRATION

Posada should be released, magistrate tells judge

In a surprise decision, a federal magistrate in Texas has recommended that Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles be released from immigration custody.

BY ALFONSO CHARDY

achardy@MiamiHerald.com

* Read the magistrates ruling

Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles should be released from immigration custody because the attorney general has not classified him as a terrorist and his continued detention runs counter to a 2001 Supreme Court ruling barring indefinite detention for foreign nationals who cannot be deported, a federal magistrate ruled Monday.

In a 24-page decision, U.S. Magistrate Norbert Garney in El Paso, Texas, wrote that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement should put Posada under supervised release because the federal government had failed to find a country willing to take the 78-year-old exile, who has Venezuelan citizenship.

''The court recommends that petitioner's request for habeas relief be granted and that petitioner be released subject to the terms and conditions of supervised release,'' Garney wrote.

Garney's ruling is only a recommendation and will not lead to Posada's immediate release. He sent the recommendation to federal Judge Philip Martinez, who is expected to make a decision later -- either adopting or rejecting Garney's recommendation.

Posada's attorney, Eduardo Soto, told The Miami Herald Monday evening that he hoped Martinez would adopt Garney's ruling because ``normally the judge would accept the ruling of the magistrate who heard the case.''

Soto said he was elated by Garney's ruling.

''I'm so happy I'm about to start screaming,'' Soto said. ``It's tremendous news.''

Barbara Gonzalez, an ICE spokeswoman in Miami, said her agency had not reviewed Garney's ruling.

''We will study the decision when we receive it,'' she said.

Posada has been in ICE custody since May 17, 2005, when federal immigration agents detained him in Miami-Dade County hours after appearing at an invitation-only news conference near Hialeah.

Before his detention, Posada had been hiding in Miami-Dade after sneaking into the United States in March 2005.

He arrived from Honduras where he had been hiding since being freed from jail in Panama where he had been convicted in connection with an alleged plot to kill Fidel Castro in 2000.

The alleged plot was just one of many the CIA-trained Posada was accused of hatching over the years -- all of which he has denied.

In 1997 and 1998 the Cuban government accused Posada of playing a role in bombings in tourist spots on the island, and in 1976 he was arrested and charged in Venezuela with the bombing of a Cuban jetliner off Barbados.

He was initially acquitted in the case, but pending appeal he escaped from prison and wound up in El Salvador working for the nestepcovert Nicaraguan contra resupply network overseen by then White House national security council staffer Oliver North.

Posada sued ICE in federal court when the Homeland Security agency denied his release March 22, arguing he was a ''danger to the community'' and posed a ``risk to the national security of the United States.''

But Garney wrote in his opinion Monday that the ICE statement was not enough to keep Posada in detention. According to Garney, the law requires for indefinite detention a formal certification by the U.S. attorney general that a detainee is a terrorist or threat to the community. ''In this case, petitioner was never certified by the Attorney General as a terrorist or danger to the community or national security,'' wrote Garney, adding the government also had not ``moved to detain petitioner under any special circumstances.''

In its 2001 ruling, the high court said foreign nationals who cannot be deported can be held beyond six months after removal orders become final -- but only if they are deemed ``especially dangerous individuals.''

The court said those cases must be ''subject to strong procedural protections,'' but did not spell them out.

[Dawn Meredith]

Looks like Posada will be released:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/15496239.htm

MMIGRATION

Posada should be released, magistrate tells judge

In a surprise decision, a federal magistrate in Texas has recommended that Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles be released from immigration custody.

BY ALFONSO CHARDY

achardy@MiamiHerald.com

* Read the magistrates ruling

Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles should be released from immigration custody because the attorney general has not classified him as a terrorist

Incredible. Our AG says this terrorist is NOT a terrorist. Black is white in this little fascist family that rules the nation.

This is very bad news. (But not unexpected) .

Dawn

[Guest Stephen Turner]

This will do America's moral standing in the rest of the World a power of good,it is beyond hypocracy. Obviously Posada is the wrong sort of evil-doer.