The Trial of Luis Posada Carriles

[Octafish]

From the perspective of someone close to the situation:

El Paso Diary

The Trial of Luis Posada Carriles

By JOSÉ PERTIERRA
CounterPunch
January 19, 2011

EXCERPT...

The main prosecutor in the case is Timothy Reardon III, an elegant and sober man. With a measured voice, he greeted the jury this morning. "This is essentially a case about lies," he said. Before detailing for the jury the lies that Posada Carriles had told U.S. immigration authorities on different occasions, Reardon said, "This is the story of an extraordinary man. It's the story of how he arrived illegally in the United States and what he said after he arrived."

"Posada arrived in the United States on March 18, 2005, aboard a boat called the Santrina," said Reardon, "and requested asylum." "The evidence will show that he repeatedly lied." It will also show that "when an immigration judge asked Posada if he had solicited individuals to help set off bombs in Cuba or carry explosives to Cuba, he said no. "He lied," stated the attorney for the United States government.

SNIP...

"The other series of lies by Posada Carriles," said Reardon, "have to do with the bombings in Havana." Reardon told the jury that the bombs exploded between the spring and September of 1997. They were set off in the Copacabana, the Chateau Miramar and the Bodeguita del Medio. He told the jury that the explosion in the lobby of the Copacabana that killed an Italian tourist named Fabio Di Celmo.

"Posada Carriles gave an interview to the New York Times in Aruba in 1998. Why?" asked Reardon. "Because Posada felt that the bombs were not getting enough publicity. He would do anything to change things in Cuba," said the prosecutor.

Then Reardon read part of the transcript of the interview Posada had given to the New York Times in 1998, in which he admitted to being the mastermind of the 1997 bombing campaign. In response to a question from the Times journalist about the death of Di Celmo, Posada answered, "It's a shame. He was in the wrong place, at the wrong time. I sleep like a baby."

CONTINUED...

http://counterpunch.org/pertierra01192011.html

While Posada Carriles is has played a role as a terrorist for the CIA and its American empire, he is only a hireling -- a pawn played to do wet work for the secret government. Not the tip of the spear that protects Democracy, he's the tip of the iceberg that's done so much to subvert it.

[gratuitous]

1. As obsessed as our nation is about terrorism

You'd think this trial would be getting slightly wider play. I guess it all depends on who the masterminds behind the terrorist are.

[Octafish]

3. Documents: CIA warned of plane bomb plot

Thank goodness for DU:

Documents: CIA warned of plane bomb plot

By ANDREW O. SELSKY, Associated Press Writer

EXCERPT...

The document shows that Luis Posada Carriles — who had worked for the CIA
but was cut off by the agency earlier that year — was secretly telling the
CIA that his fellow far-right Cuban exiles opposed to Fidel Castro's
communist government were plotting to bring down a commercial jet.

SNIP...

The Cubana Airlines plane, on a flight from Venezuela to Cuba, blew up
shortly after taking off from a stopover in Barbados on Oct. 6, 1976,
killing all 73 aboard, including Cuba's Olympic fencing team.

SNIP...

Separating deception from truth in the intelligence world is notoriously
difficult, and the newly released documents contain mixed messages about
Posada. Much remains murky.

In a report dated a month after the bombing, then FBI Director Clarence
Kelly told Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that a confidential FBI
source ascertained the bombing had been planned in Caracas by Posada,
Venezuelan intelligence agency official Ricardo Morales Navarrete and
Cuban exile Frank Castro, who is not related to the Cuban leader.

Two Venezuelan employees of Posada's private security agency were arrested
in Trinidad the day after the bombing, and one of them — who said he had
worked for the CIA — admitted the two had planted the bomb, documents
posted by the National Security Archive show.

Posada trained with the CIA for the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and served
in the U.S. Army in the early 1960s. In 1965, he allegedly plotted to
overthrow the Guatemalan government and blow up a Soviet or Cuban
freighter in Mexico, according to the FBI. In 1967, he moved to Venezuela,
eventually leading its counterintelligence agency, and was running his own
security firm in the mid-1970s.

CONTINUED...

http://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg02182.html

That's the AP from 2006. One would think such things would be available in their files for their reporting today.

[malaise]

2. He killed one of my friends

but no one calls him a terrorist.

[Catherina]

6. I'm so sorry

:hug:

[Octafish]

7. Posada Carriles knows what he is.

As the pain never goes away, we will always remember, too.

[robertpaulsen]

4. To the greatest page!

This is an important story. Let's hope this time we nail this terrorist!

[Octafish]

8. Poppy Bush was head of CIA when they were warned about Chile/CONDOR terrorists planning murder...

Let's get to the roots, which means wherever the aspens lead.

The Bush Family's Favorite Terrorist

By Jerry Meldon & Robert Parry
ConsortiumNews.com
April 25, 2005

EXCERPT...

Bush Embarrassment

A thorough investigation of Posada also could prove embarrassing for the Bush family, since the Cubana Airline bombing was part of a wave of right-wing terrorism that occurred in 1976 under the nose of then-CIA Director George H.W. Bush.

If Posada ever told his full story, he might shed unwelcome light on how much the senior George Bush knew about the terrorist attacks in 1976 and the Iran-Contra operation a decade later, where Posada also showed up.

SNIP...

If the Letelier-Moffitt murders had been solved quickly, there was a danger the revelations could have hurt Republican election chances in 1976, when President Gerald Ford was in a tight race with Democrat Jimmy Carter.

Linking the Chilean government to an audacious terror attack in the heart of the U.S. capital would have revived critical press coverage of the CIA’s role in the overthrow of Chile’s elected socialist government in 1973, a coup that had put in power Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who, in turn, launched “Operation Condor.”

At the time of the Letelier-Moffitt car bombing, Bush’s CIA had evidence in its files that implicated Pinochet’s secret police in the plot to kill Letelier, an outspoken critic of the military regime. But Bush’s spy agency withheld the incriminating information from the FBI and misdirected the investigation away from the guilty parties. (For details, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.)

CONTINUED...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/042405.html

Swell people. Just swell.

[Catherina]

5. Send him to Cuba so they can judge him. Rec'd n/t

[Octafish]

9. Cuba, Barbados, Venezuela...lots of places want Bambi.

For reason: The Bloody Face of “Bambi” -- A Brief Dossier on Luis Posada Carriles

[Catherina]

12. What a nasty piece of work. Involvement in the Kennedy Assassination?

What is this?

Posada, aside from raising suspicions of his involvement in the Kennedy assassination, receives military training in explosives and other skills at Fort Benning (later home to the School of the Americas), where he graduated with the rank of lieutenant. He, in turn, goes on to train anti-Castro mercenaries and dedicates himself to various terrorist operations while the CIA provides him a salary.

[hootinholler]

14. To quote St Ronnie, Well...

There is this.

Bush, Sr., has said he was not with the CIA before being appointed director by President Ford in early 1976. But there's a memo from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to the State Department dated November 28, 1963, indicating otherwise. It concerns information developed by the Miami FBI office about groups in Miami seeking to blame the JFK murder on the Cuban government, and it says the information was orally furnished on November 23 to "George Bush of the CIA." Bush was in Dallas then. As was another CIA operative, Chauncey Holt (now deceased), who identified Posada as being in Dealey Plaza at the time of the murder.

Skimming it, my opinion is the article goes into my read queue. YMMV.

-Hoot

[Catherina]

15. Mine too. Thanks. So Posada was in Dealey Plaza?

...

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.

...

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.

...

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

[hootinholler]

16. The dude must have a hell of an insurance file.

Since he wasn't pardoned when his pals were, I'm actually shocked he hasn't been retired.

-Hoot

[flamingdem]

10. This is enormously important to the Cuban people and our future relationship w/them! nt

[Octafish]

18. A Voice From the Past

More from the trial:

El Paso Diary

A Voice From the Past

By JOSÉ PERTIERRA
CounterPunch
January 20, 2011

EXCERPT...

Teresinski and surrealism

(US Deputy Attorney Jerome) Teresinski then began to question Garrett-Jackson about the contents of the asylum application Posada had brought before an immigration judge in August of 2005. He established that on the form known as I-589, Posada answered that the question about aliases did not apply to him, that he said he'd entered the United States on March 26, 2005 by illegally crossing the Mexican border without passing through an immigration post, that the questions about whether he had a passport and which country had issued it to him did not apply to him either, that he didn't speak English, that he'd lived previously in Panama, El Salvador and Honduras but he couldn't remember where and that he never incited, aided or participated in the persecution of other people.

This last is a surreal statement coming from the likes of Posada, who was convicted in Panama for attempting in the year 2000 to detonate 200 pounds of C-4 explosive in an auditorium filled with students.

SNIP...

Looking at Posada, I realized something very curious. The section for the audience is located in the back of the courtroom, behind the desks and seats where the trial lawyers are seated. Observing from the back, Posada and his three attorneys are on the left-hand side, while the attorneys for the prosecution and the FBI agents supporting them are seated on the right.

The back of the courtroom where the audience sits has three rows on each side. The section behind Posada was empty except for one seat that was occupied by a solitary woman, while the three rows behind the prosecutors were filled to capacity. It was as though no one wanted to approach the man the world recognizes as a terrorist, while the United States accuses him of only of lying.

SNIP...

For my part, I felt frustrated today. Posada Carriles has 73 murder charges pending in Caracas for blowing up a passenger airliner. Venezuela asked for his extradition on June 15, 2005. The evidence that he is the mastermind of the plane's destruction is overwhelming. The law is clear. There is an extradition treaty between Venezuela and the United States that goes back to 1922. Instead of presenting an extradition case to Judge Cardone, the United States Government limited itself to prosecuting him for lying.

CONTINUED...

http://counterpunch.org/pertierra01202011.html

Thank you for caring about this, too. Very much obliged, flamingdem.

[flamingdem]

19. I suggest googling Anne Bardach for updates - She's a journalist focused on Carriles

http://alongthemalecon.blogspot.com/2011/01/judge-orders-journalist-to-produce.html

Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Judge orders journalist to produce Posada Carriles painting
The photos aren't good enough.
U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Cardone ruled Tuesday that California journalist Ann Louise Bardach must bring a painting - and not just pictures of it - to El Paso when she testifies in court.
The author of the painting is Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative on trial this week in El Paso.
Posada Carriles gave Bardach the painting when she interviewed him in 1998. His dedication read:

To my friend Ana, who understands our cause for a free Cuba.

[leftstreet]

11. K&R

[Octafish]

20. Posada Carriles: His Shadow Hangs Over Central America

The question about passports is way relevant:

Posada Carriles: His Shadow Hangs Over Central America

In 1988, Luis Posada Carriles returned to Guatemala during the government of Christian Democrat Vinicio Cerezo, claiming to have been a member of his security staff, although the former leader denies it. But it is clear that he worked at the former state telephone company in Guatemala.

It is interesting to note the relationship of this subject with the Christian Democratic Party, of which he received support in Venezuela, then in El Salvador and later in Guatemala, when he was already a clearly identified terrorist and a fugitive from justice.

Once there, he renewed his friendship with Venezuelan Victor Rivera, who worked as an advisor to the Ministry of Interior during three consecutive governments and set up a parallel power structure through which he moved and acted legal and illegally, at will.

SNIP...

Perhaps one of the best nests organized by Posada was set up in El Salvador, which had the full support of senior officials of the Nationalist Republican Alliance, ARENA, and a group of local businessmen who funded it through the curious procedure of "buying" at exorbitant prices the pictures that Posada says he himself paints.

Guillermo Sol, a member of one of the wealthiest families in El Salvador, and Spanish citizen Ramón Sanfeliú, owner of Moldtrok’s Workshop, which is basically a front for purchasing and selling illegal arms and war supplies, are among those who gave Posada Carriles shelter and cover as well as officials from various ARENA governments.

CONTINUED...

http://www.cmhw.cu/English/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=450%3A-posada-carriles-his-shadow-hangs-over-central-america&catid=54%3Aspecial&Itemid=84

Thanks, leftstreet, for giving a damn.

[hootinholler]

13. How is this guy not on the BFEE retirement plan?

The idea here is to try him here, keep him here so he's quiet, eh?

-Hoot

[tex-wyo-dem]

17. K & R!

[bobthedrummer]

21. K&R What's beyond my ken is how many US citizens were harmed, even killed, by merely being on a

"list" and that includes many ethical law enforcement and judicial members that had knowledge of what Richard Bruce Cheney called the "dark side" since passage of The National Security Act of 1947.

No one is above the law in a constitutionally governed representative democracy-it's a crime to cover-up crimes via abuse of a secrecy classification system.

The only tinfoil today is wrapped around leftovers.