[Marxism] STUNNING: Cuban jet bombing suspect ordered free on bail in U.S.

[Walter Lippmann <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-posada7apr07,1,7020766.story?coll=la-news-a_section

Cuban jet bombing suspect ordered free on bail in U.S.

Venezuela and Cuba want Luis Posada Carriles in a 1976 plane bombing 
that killed 73. But in this country, the former CIA operative 
is charged with lying to immigration officials.
By Carol J. Williams
Times Staff Writer

April 7, 2007

MIAMI â A federal judge Friday ordered Cuban militant Luis Posada
Carriles freed from a New Mexico jail, ruling he be allowed to live
under electronic surveillance with his family in Miami while awaiting
trial May 11 on charges of lying to immigration authorities.

The move to free the 79-year-old, who is suspected of blowing up a
Cuban airliner in 1976 and bombing Havana hotels in the late 1990s,
sparked outrage in Cuba. The Communist Party newspaper Granma posted
the news on its website under a headline that read: "Blackmail Gets
Results."

Posada has never been charged in U.S. courts in connection with those
terrorist acts, his critics contend, because he likely threatened to
disclose other violence committed during his decades of covert work
with the CIA.

A Bay of Pigs veteran who once served time in Panama for plotting to
kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Posada has become a political
conundrum for the Bush administration. The president and his
Republican allies have benefited from the support of influential
Cuban exiles in Miami, many of whom view Posada as a patriotic
freedom fighter.

Posada entered the United States illegally in March 2005, about eight
months after he and three other Florida-based Cuban militants were
pardoned on illegal weapons and conspiracy charges by outgoing
Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso.

The move came four years into Posada's eight-year sentence, and was
seen as a favor to Bush, whose reelection in November 2004 was riding
on the continued backing of Miami Cubans.

The other three men, all U.S. citizens, arrived here to a hero's
welcome while Posada â Cuban-born and Venezuela-naturalized â made
his way home clandestinely. Posada held a Miami news conference,
fueling foreign outcry that the U.S. government was providing refuge
for a terrorist. He was arrested in May 2005. Cuba and Venezuela want
Posada extradited to stand trial for the Cubana de Aviacion bombing
that killed all 73 on board the Caracas to Havana flight.

Posada escaped from prison in Venezuela in 1985 while he awaited a
third trial in the jetliner bombing off Barbados. He was acquitted
twice.

After his 2005 arrest, Posada first was held in an immigration lockup
in El Paso â where he told officials he had made his way to the
United States with the help of a smuggler via Mexico and Texas.

Cuban media, however, reported that Posada actually was picked up
from Mexico's Yucatan peninsula by a shrimp boat owned by Cuban
American developer Santiago Alvarez and brought to a Gulf Coast
marina. Alvarez is in jail following a guilty plea on weapons
violations charges.

The El Paso immigration court ordered Posada deported in September
2005, but U.S. authorities were unable to persuade any of the seven
allied countries contacted to accept him. A federal judge ruled that
he couldn't be extradited to Cuba or Venezuela because of the
possibility he would be tortured or abused in the custody of those
governments.

Last fall, Posada's Miami lawyer, Eduardo Soto, filed a writ of
habeas corpus seeking his release. Another Texas judge ordered the
federal government to charge Posada with a crime by Feb. 1 or release
him.

Then a federal grand jury in January indicted Posada on immigration
violations and transferred him to a prison in Otero County, N.M. â
voiding the deadline by placing him in custody pending a criminal
proceeding.

On Friday, shortly before the court closed for Easter weekend, U.S.
District Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso ordered Posada released.
She did not address a government request to keep him jailed pending
an appeal.

Posada's El Paso attorney, Felipe D.J. Millan, could not be reached
for comment. But he told the Associated Press it was unlikely Posada
would be released over the holiday weekend.

"He deserves to go home and live in peace and enjoy his family,"
Millan said. "Obviously we'll do whatever we need to do to post bond.
We'll try to get him [out] as soon as possible."

Cardone's nine-page ruling required Posada to post a $250,000 bond,
and mandated that his wife and two adult children put up $100,000
bond to ensure their compliance with other conditions of his release,
including 24-hour home confinement and wearing an electronic
monitoring device.

carol.williams@xxxxxxxxxxx




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