U.S. House hearing focuses on Posada

By Pablo Bachelet

Members of Congress on Thursday panned the Bush administration's handling of the case of anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles, wanted by Cuba and Venezuela in the 1976 bombing of a Havana airliner that killed 73 passengers and crew.

The hearing brought together Posada's attorney, Arturo Hernández, as well as journalists and investigators who have looked into the activities of Posada, now free and living in Miami.

The hearing was convened by Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight, and one of the sharpest critics of the Bush administration's policy on Cuba and Venezuela.

Both countries often cite the Posada case as an example of the Bush administration's double standard -- demanding international cooperation on terrorism but seemingly reluctant to press terrorism charges against Posada, presumably to avoid upsetting some

Cuban exiles who consider him a hero.

Delahunt said there was ''compelling evidence'' implicating Posada in the airplane bombing and that he was ''bewildered'' by the administration's reluctance to invoke the Patriot Act and arrest Posada as a terrorist.

U.S. officials have said they cannot indict Posada for the airplane bombing because no U.S. citizens were involved and no U.S. assets were used.

Earlier this year, a judge in Texas ruled that Posada, a former CIA operative, cannot be sent back to Venezuela because he could be tortured there. Venezuela denies that.

He was arrested in Miami in 2005 and charged with immigration fraud, but U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone threw out the charges. The Justice Department is appealing that ruling.

Delahunt questioned Hernández over the Department of Justice's handling of the immigration case, asking how many witnesses had testified and the reliability of those who did.

Hernández said Posada considered himself a freedom fighter and said he had decided to testify on behalf of his client because there was a need ``to counterbalance the rhetoric and often misinformation that has emanated from Cuba and Venezuela and their acolytes in our country.''

"Mr. Posada Carriles is not and has never been a terrorist,'' he said. ``His lifelong ambition has been to bring democracy and freedom to his place of birth.''

He said most of the evidence in the airplane case, which includes declassified CIA and FBI documents, was more than three decades old and ``based on dubious double hearsay from unidentified sources.''

Freelance writer Blake Fleetwood testified about his six-hour interview with Posada and another alleged participant in the airplane attack, Orlando Bosch, in a Venezuelan prison in 1977, saying the two ``proudly bragged of their complicity in hundreds of murders, bombings and assassinations.''

He then faced a barrage of skeptical questions from the ranking Republican on the subcommittee, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, (Calif., who asked if the two had confessed to having been ''personally involved'' in killings of civilians. Fleetwood demurred, and agreed that they had not.

The subcommittee also took testimony from Peter Kornbluh, who heads the Cuba documentation project at George Washington University's National Security Archives. Kornbluh has successfully declassified CIA and FBI documents on Posada that suggest an involvement in the airline bombing.

Also testifying was Anne Louise Bardach, who interviewed Posada in 1998 and co-authored a story for The New York Times. She is fighting a subpoena by a federal grand jury in New Jersey investigating Posada's links to a string of bombings in Havana in 1997 that killed one Italian tourist.

She said that ``if the government had been serious about criminally prosecuting Mr. Posada on the basis of the statements he made [to me] . . . it could have done so long ago.''

El Nuevo Herald

Wednesday November 14, 2007

Audiencia en el Congreso por el caso Posada

Por Wilfredo Cancio Isla

El caso del combatiente anticastrista Luis Posada Carriles centrará mañana los debates de una audiencia congresional en Washington, convocada por el liderazgo demócrata de la Cámara de Representantes.

La audiencia pública está fijada para este jueves, a las 3 p.m. ante el Subcomité de Organismos Internacionales, Derechos Humanos y Supervisión, que preside el representante William Delahunt, demócrata por Massachusetts. La sesión ha sido convocada bajo el tema ''Garantías diplomáticas'' sobre la tortura: un estudio de por qué algunos son aceptados y otros rechazados.

''Vamos a indagar el comportamiento diferenciado del gobierno ante individuos detenidos por similares razones alrededor del mundo'', dijo anoche Delahunt, partidario del encausamiento de Posada por su presunta participación en actos terroristas.

El congresista, un firme crítico de la administración de George W. Bush, agregó que el propósito de esta convocatoria es ''enviar un mensaje de credibilidad'' sobre el tratamiento al terrorismo internacional por parte de las instituciones estadounidenses. ''No es sostenible un trato diferente para individuos vinculados a actividades terroristas'', insistió Delahunt. ``No existen terroristas buenos y terroristas malos: el terrorismo es siempre condenable''.

Los gobiernos de Cuba y Venezuela culpan a Posada por la voladura de un avión de pasajeros en 1976 y por los atentados contra instalaciones turísticas de la isla, en 1997. Un jurado de instrucción en Nueva Jersey investiga aún la posible vinculación de Posada con las explosiones ocurridas hace diez años en hoteles habaneros, que dejaron como saldo un turista italiano muerto.

La audiencia tiene lugar apenas una semana después de que el Departamento de Justicia apelara un fallo emitido el pasado 8 de mayo por la jueza federal Kathleen Cardone, quien desestimó los cargos migratorios contra Posada, de 79 años.

En la audiencia de mañana participarán como testigos el historiador Peter Kornbluh, analista principal del Archivo de Seguridad Nacional, una entidad de la Universidad George Washington; la periodista Ann Louise Bardach, autora de una polémica entrevista con Posada en The New York Times en 1998; y Roseanne Nenninger, hermana de un joven guyanés que figura entre las 76 víctimas del atentado al avión cubano en aguas de Barbados.

El organismo congresional, perteneciente al Comité de Relaciones Exteriores de la Cámara, ha invitado también a testificar a Arturo Hernández, principal abogado de Posada.

''Esta audiencia ocurre en un contexto político que trata de ponerle presión al Departamento de Justicia para que actúe contra mi cliente'', dijo Hernández. ``Pero estaré allí para defender los derechos de un hombre que ha dedicado su vida a enfrentar a la dictadura que gobierna su país por 48 años''.

Se espera que el académico Kornbluh ofrezca declaraciones sobre documentos desclasificados que presuntamente comprometen a Posada --reclutado por la CIA en 1961-- en actividades violentas contra el régimen cubano y otros operativos encubiertos en Centroamérica.

Bardach dijo anoche que su participación se concentrará en ``esclarecer datos biográficos sobre la trayectoria de Posada y brindar información sobre sus artículos periodísticos relacionados con el caso''.

El pasado año, Bardach reveló que la oficina del FBI en Miami había destruido evidencias sobre la supuesta participación de Posada en los atentados en Cuba en 1997.

El subcomité presidido por Delahunt está integrado por otros siete representantes, entre ellos el republicano Jeff Flake (Arizona), quien ha viajado a la isla en varias ocasiones.

US Fed News

Tuesday November 13, 2007

Rep. Delahunt to Examine Case of Luis

Posada Carilles

Rep. William D. Delahunt, D-Mass. (10th CD), issued the following news release:  

Congressman Bill Delahunt announced that the Foreign Affairs panel that he chairs, the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight, will hold a hearing on Thursday, November 15, on the case of Luis Posada Carriles, an alleged Cuban exile terrorist currently living in Miami, FL.  

"It's important to examine the treatment he has received," said Delahunt, "because it goes to the heart of American credibility among the family of nations."  

The hearing, entitled "'Diplomatic Assurances' and Torture: A Case Study into Why Some are Accepted and Others Rejected," will seek clues from Posada's background as to why he - unlike other accused terrorists, many of whom have been kidnapped and sent to be tortured in other countries by the Bush Administration - has so far been able to escape an accounting for his alleged crimes. These include one of the most notorious terrorist attacks in the Western Hemisphere, the midair bombing of a civilian airliner in 1976 that resulted in the deaths of 73 civilians.  

Posada has been allowed to live comfortably in the United States, despite his long history of violence or the fact that he is a fugitive from justice in Venezuela and has been linked to terrorist plots in that country, Cuba, Panama, and elsewhere.  

"What is it about Posada that has spared him the treatment that other alleged terrorists have received?" asked Delahunt. "I'm not advocating that he be sent to be tortured. But why have so many others, some of whom are later found to be innocent, rendered on much flimsier evidence to a living hell, while Posada walks free? This stands is stark contrast to the case of Maher Ahar, which this Subcommittee examined several weeks ago. That's what our hearing will look into."  

The hearing will take place at 3:00 PM on November 15, 2007, in room 2237 of the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, DC.  

Witnesses will include Peter Kornbluh of the National Security Archives; Ann Louise Bardach, an author who has tracked Posada's activities for over a decade; Roseanne Nenninger.