FBI, Cuba cooperating on Posada

[Billy Burnett]

Source: Miami Herald

The FBI office in Miami has been quietly gathering evidence on a 1997 bombing that killed an Italian man at a Havana hotel, with agents traveling to the Cuban capital recently to see if they can link Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles to the attack.

The extraordinary effort at cooperation between the two countries underscores their shared goal to pin the plot on Posada, the focus of a federal grand jury probe in Newark, N.J. Posada, a former CIA operative trained in explosives, is under house arrest at his wife's West Kendall apartment as he awaits trial on immigration fraud charges unrelated to the bombing.


//

Three federal law enforcement officers familiar with the case described the trip as ''pretty amazing'' and ''unheard of'' because Cuba had for years blocked FBI access to witnesses, crime scenes, forensic evidence and more information in the bombing.

//

Affidavits, faxes and statements from the FBI's files and Cuba point to Posada as the mastermind who coordinated donations, recruits and explosives for alleged bombing missions between 1993 and 1998.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/460/story/94605.html

[Vogon_Glory]

1. Hmmmm, Has Posada Turned Into An Embarrassment?

Hmmmmm, Has Luis Posada Carrilles turned into an embarrassment for Team Shrub? Could it be that US allies, as well as other countries in the Americas, are asking ugly and pointed questions concerning how the US defines terror and terrorism, and are demanding that * and Fredo show a bit of consistency? Could it be that other countries DON'T show the same sorts of tender feelings towards Posada that the hard-right fringe of the Miami Exile community apparently shares with senior Bush Leaguers?

Or could this be a last, gallant grand gesture by professional, career prosecutors and investigators before they're replaced by Republican Party political hacks?

[1932]

2. Cuba cooperated with Clinton FBI -- gave them information gathered

about RW bombers in Florida. The FBI turned around and arrested the five Cubans who gave the information to the Cuban government.

Chomsky wrote about this in Hegemony or Survival.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Those five men have learned a lesson in trust the hard way. They probably rue the day

they ever conceived the bright idea that they could simply go to the U.S. government with their evidence and that powerful government would seek justice.

The government has made sure almost NO ONE knows this has happened to these five men who are languishing in solitary, cast to the four winds, unable to see their loved ones, or even receive messages from them.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Here's an account he wrote which appeared in the Toronto Star:

How America Determines Friends and Foes
Noam Chomsky
The Toronto Star, March 14, 2004
~snip~
Consider the Cuban Five, Cuban nationals convicted in Miami in 2001 as part of a spy ring.

To understand the case, which has prompted international protests, we have to look at the sordid history of U.S.-Cuba relations (leaving aside here the issue of the crushing, decades-long U.S. embargo).

The United States has engaged in large- and small-scale terrorist attacks against Cuba since 1959, including the Bay of Pigs invasion and the bizarre plots to kill Castro. Direct U.S. participation in the attacks ended during the late '70s — at least officially.

In 1989, the first president Bush granted a pardon to Orlando Bosch, one of the most notorious anti-Castro terrorists, accused of masterminding the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976. Bush overruled the Justice Department, which had refused an asylum request from Bosch, concluding: "The security of this nation is affected by its ability to urge credible other nations to refuse aid and shelter to terrorists, whose target we too often become."

Recognizing that the United States was going to harbour anti-Castro terrorists, Cuban agents infiltrated those networks. In 1998, high-level FBI officials were sent to Havana, where they were given thousands of pages of documentation and hundreds of hours of videotape about terrorist actions organized by cells in Florida.

The FBI reacted by arresting the people who provided the information, including a group now known as the Cuban Five.

The arrests were followed by what amounted to a show trial in Miami. The Five were sentenced, three to life sentences (for espionage; and the leader, Gerardo Hernandez, also for conspiracy to murder), after convictions that are now being appealed.

Meanwhile, people regarded by the FBI and Justice Department as dangerous terrorists live happily in the United States and continue to plot and implement crimes.
(snip/...)

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20040314.htm

[Judi Lynn]

3. The FBI is going "to see if they can link Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles to the attack?"

They could read the New York Times account of an interview he did with them in which he mentioned the hotel bombings!

His proudest recent operation, last year's string of bombings of hotels in Cuba, was organized in Latin America, he says. A handwritten set of instructions faxed by Posada to his operatives in Guatemala, however, notes that some of the money for the bombings had come from Cuban-Americans in the United States. Posada confirmed the authenticity of the fax, but claimed not to know the men named in his document. "Somebody, a friend of a friend" gave him the names, he said with a wink. "A priest. You see, I'm not in touch with the operators."

"But anyway," he predicted, "they're going to put the finger on me."
(snip)

http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/americas/071398cuba-commando.html

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

Doesn't it just make you wild when corporate media sources refer to bombers/mass murderers as "militants?" Christalmighty. What they will do to whitewash common, amoral right-wing assholes.

[peacetalksforall]

5. News like this leaves me waiting and suspicious. Logic dictates

that there are dedicated employees at the FBI and CIA. But, to go to Cuba for the purposes described, it would seem that the trip would have to be coordinated with the WH and the State Dept. No?

Given what we know about the politicization and lies of our WH and State Dept and the previous acts that allowed terrorist Posada Carilles to go free and given that PC was once CIA and to know that Cuban-American and CIA terrorism was common and ordered - where did this come from?

And why is this NOT an investigation into the bombing of Cubana Airlines?

If Rove was running this, we could speculate that the FBI was trying to see what evidence Cuba had so that Posada Carilles could be defended my stealth. Then, Bush would pardon him.

Neither (many) Democrats or (most) Republicans can be trusted when it comes to Cuba.

Why are we talking terrorism in the 1990's? It's time for someone to post a link to the 'long list'

Terrorism reigns in the United States. Welcome to the Hypocritical States of America.

[Peace Patriot]

7. I'm with you, higher class--very suspicious. Could be pressure from the now

largely leftist (majorityist) governments of South America, that is, the Bush Junta has to show them something, in order to shove "free trade" deals down their throats. They are an uppity lot, for sure. "Free trade," World Bank/IMF, Colombian/Bush death squads, all getting exposed, resisted and rejected. What's a corporate predator puppet to do? Put old CIA/Bush Cartel asset away in big showy trial.

Could be. But I would suspect even darker things at work. Posada falls down a staircase type of things. I figured that's why they let him out. Maybe his jailers weren't Bush men. Wouldn't go along with a quiet snuffing in custody.

I doubt the Bush Cartel wants to see this man on trial. He knows things. He's already said things. He's also very old--not much to lose? Stay tuned on this one. Hard situation to read. How it's playing (or how the Bushites think it's playing) in South/Latin America may be the key. Also, the context is the Colombian paramilitary scandals. Only a matter of time before Bushite direct links are exposed--to drug trafficking, mass murder and assassination plots against Chavez and others.

[Mika]

9. Everyone knows that you can't trust anything Cubans in Cuba say.

Especially if is about any US op.

:sarcasm:

[Judi Lynn]

8. Kick!

:kick: :kick: :kick: