Venezuelan soldiers accused of bombing to be released by U.S.

[struggle4progress]

4/26/2006, 9:59 p.m. ET
By CURT ANDERSON
The Associated Press

MIAMI (AP) — Two dissident Venezuelan military officers who fled their nation after being accused in two bombings will be freed from U.S. custody Friday but not extradited to their native country, officials said.

Former army Lts. Jose Antonio Colina and German Varela have been detained by U.S. immigration officials since 2003 after requesting asylum upon arriving in Miami, citing a fear of persecution by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's government.

Venezuela has asked for the two men to be extradited. They have denied any involvement in the 2003 bombings at the Spanish Embassy and Colombian Consulate, in which four people were injured.

The men accused Chavez of persecuting them for belonging to a group of officers who occupied a Caracas plaza in 2002 and futilely called for rebellion against his government ...

http://www.pennlive.com/newsflash/pa/index.ssf?/base/news-37/114610344936020.xml&storylist=penn

[William769]

1. Tit for tat.

[HuffleClaw]

2. bush is harboring TERRORISTS

and its not the first time.

[rucky]

9. exactly! n/t

[951-Riverside]

3. Saw this coming afterall we don't deport people anymore.

[IndianaGreen]

4. The terrorist Bush protects his own terrorists

while accusing others of the crimes that he commits on a grand scale.

[saigon68]

7. He is a war criminal

[1932]

5. So, were they persecuted between the 2002 rally and the 2003 bombings?

Presuming that they were involved with the bombing, it seems like getting involved in terrorist bombings is a funny way to act if you're really worried that your government has it out for you (unless you're insane) because you're going from giving your government a crazy reason to persecute you to giving them a good reason to PROSECUTE you.

It seems like the immigration court in the US should have asked more questions about the weight of the evidence implicating them in the bombings. If it was weighty, I think it would undermine their argument about persecution for membership in a particular group. Groups of terrorists aren't the sort of groups the asylum laws are meant to protect.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Venezuelan opposition paper's version:

Caracas, Wednesday April 26 , 2006

US court paves the way to release two Venezuelan dissident military officers

A US court dismissed appeals in connection with the case of two Venezuelan military officers charged in Venezuela with terrorism, in a move that paves the way for their release after they have been in custody in the United States for over two years.

The ruling favors retired National Guard lieutenants José Antonio Colina and Germán Rodolfo Varela, who were accused of planting bombs at the diplomatic premises of Colombia and Spain in Caracas in 2003. The blasts left four people injured. Both Colina and Varela were among a number of dissident military officers who took Plaza Francia, in Altamira, northeast Caracas, and declared "civil disobedience."

Colina's defense lawyer Matthew Archambeault, told Efe that the ruling was "the decision we hoped to obtain." He labeled the ruling as "one of the last steps" for his client to "regain freedom" soon. Both officers have been under custody of US immigration authorities since December 2003, when they arrived in Miami airport and applied for political asylum.

Colina said the ruling "is a defeat for the (Venezuelan) Government and judiciary system, as it has been shown that there is no rule of law in Venezuela, and people there do not have a system guaranteeing their fundamental freedoms."
(snip/)

http://english.eluniversal.com/2006/04/26/en_pol_art_26A699851.shtml

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Quite the "news story," wasn't it?

Reference to Venezuelan opposition media:

After Chávez came to power in 1998, the five main privately owned channels - Venevisión, Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV), Globovisión and CMT - and nine of the 10 major national newspapers, including El Universal, El Nacional, Tal Cual, El Impulso, El Nuevo País, and El Mundo, have taken over the role of the traditional political parties, which were damaged by the president’s electoral victories. Their monopoly on information has put them in a strong position. They give the opposition support, only rarely reporting government statements and never mentioning its large majority, despite that majority’s confirmation at the ballot box. They have always described the working class districts as a red zone inhabited by dangerous classes of ignorant people and delinquents. No doubt considering them unphotogenic, they ignore working class leaders and organisations.
(snip)

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:rfkySFDr6CEJ:www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6705.htm+%22Tal+Cual%22++and+coup&hl=en&start=5

[leesa]

8. Them's OUR terrorists! Don't want ayone looking too carefully at that.