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Posada Case: Bush Regime Rejected Recorded Confession of Terrorist
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
Granma International - Nov 16, 2007
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2007/noviembre/vier16/The-Posada-case-before-Congress.html
The Posada case before Congress
Bushs District Attorney rejects a recorded confession by the terrorist
BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD
Granma International staff writer
IN September 2005, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
deliberately rejected the use of a recorded confession by Luis Posada
Carriles, obtained in Caracas in 1977 by U.S. journalist Blake
Fleetwood, in the presence of Orlando Bosch.
That information was revealed this Thursday in Wa****ngton before the
Sub-Committee for International Organizations, Human Rights and
Supervision of the U.S. Congress, during a hearing convened by
Congressman Bill Delahunt with respect to the international terrorist
and CIA agent.
Fleetwood, who still holds a recording from the time of the testimony,
which was published in the magazine New Times, had already agreed to
give evidence as had been asked of him by lawyer Jo Ellen Ardinger, who
was responsible for the case at that time.
"In 1977 I interviewed two of the most deadly terrorists of the 20th
century," begins Fleetwood, relating how he had access, tape recorder
in hand, to Posada and Bosch, in the Venezuelan jail where they were
being held for the sabotage of a Cuban airliner, that had occurred to
previous year and for the deaths of all of its passengers.
The two terrorists, surprised by his sudden appearance and frustrated
at their situation, began to openly brag about their crimes.
"I WAS A CIA DRAW OF $300 A WEEK"
According to Fleetwood, Posada told him textually: "I was on a CIA draw
of $300 plus all expenses. "The CIA helped me set up my detective
agency from which we planned actions."
The journalist tells how the two prisoners "spoke about the murder of
two Cuban diplomats in Argentina, the bombing of the Mexican embassy in
Buenos Aires, the bombings of the Air Panama office in Bogot!, the
Cubana Airlines Office in Panama and, finally, the Cubana Aviation
sabotage which killed 73 civilians."
Posada and Bosch also confirmed how "everything" had been planned in a
meeting in Bonao in the Dominican Republic, where it was believed that
CORU would then mount attacks throughout the continent.
Fleetwood explained that on returning to his hotel, the Anauco Hilton,
he immediately communicated with Eugene Propper, the U.S. Assistant
Attorney in Wa****ngton, who was investigating the Orlando Letelier
murder in Wa****ngton, D.C.
Propper called him back nine minutes later: "The CIA told the secret
police everything. They are out to get you. You are in great danger."
The re****ter discovered later on that Venezuelan President Carlos
Andres P(c)rez had personally ordered his capture by the DISIP (secret
police).
"In September of 2005 I offered this information, notes and tapes, to
the Department of Homeland Security. I was contacted by Jo Ellen
Ardinger, an attorney with DHS. She seemed excited by my information
and phoned and emailed me," recalled Fleetwood.
Ardinger told him that this information was "exactly" what they needed
to prevent Posada from entering the United States, by clearly
demonstrating that he was a terrorist.
"She asked me if I was willing to testify. I said that I was."
A few months later, the immigration trial in El Paso began before Judge
Kathleen Cardone.
"I waited for the Department of Homeland Security to get back to me to
ask for my notes and tapes. They never did."
"THE CHIEF SAID: HEY! WAIT A MINUTE]"
For her part, the well-known journalist Ann Louise Bardach, who
interviewed the terrorist for The New York Times in 1998, revealed how
FBI agents who investigated information in Guatemala concerning the
attacks in Havana confirmed confidentially that their work was abruptly
interrupted after interviewing Antonio Alvarez, a Cuban-American
businessman from Greenville, South Carolina, head of WRB Enterprises, a
Tampa firm with subsidiaries in Central America.
Alvarez had seen two of his collaborators, buddies of Luis Posada
Carriles, handling explosives and had alerted the authorities.
"We thought it would be a slam dunk: wed charge and arrest Posada."
"But then," the agent said, "we had a meeting one day and the chief
said, ~Hey, wait a minute. Lots of folks around here think Posada is a
freedom fighter. We were in shock. And they closed down the whole
Posada investigation. When we asked for a wiretap on [famed militant]
Orlando Bosch, who we knew was working on bombing runs, we were turned
down."
POSADA NEVER NEEDED AN INTERPRETER
Later, Bardach also shocked the hearing by revealing how Posada
Carriles had never really needed an interpreter in order to
communicate, by recalling that the pretext for the poor interpretation
justified his release.
Posada learned English as a young man, she underlined.
"He later served as a translator for U.S. servicemen during
Iran-Contra. I had interviewed him mostly in English, as did Blake
Fleetwood for New Times in 1976, and at no time did Posada indicate to
either of us that he did not understand something."
"In fact, his attorney, Matthew Archambleault, who handled his
arraignment, spoke to him in English."
The re****ter recalled how in August 2003, the FBI in Miami put an end
to the whole investigation into Posada, while he was imprisoned for
terrorism in Panama.
"The closure of his case allowed a green-lighted destruction of the
evidence that conscientious FBI agents had so meticulously gathered
against him for many years- including some of the original cables from
Union City to Posada, she stated, pointing out that FBI spokeswoman
Judy Orihuela, confirmed the destruction but explained it as a
"routine cleaning" of the evidence room. Once a case is closed, she
said, it is greenlighted for destruction in order to free up space in
The Bulky."
Orihula confirmed that an operation like that would have to have been
signed by the Special Agent who was head of the Miami office, namely
H(c)ctor Pesquera, and that they needed the green light from the U.S.
Attorneys Office of Marcos Jimenez.
FBI sources later revealed to Bardach that "five boxes" of do***ents
had been destroyed.
The journalist stated that that situation had occurred while congress
members Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart were calling for
the terrorists release, sending letters to Panamanian President Mireya
Moscoso on two occasions.
Among the witnesses who appeared were academic Peter Kornbluh,
principal analyst at the National Security Archive at the George
Wa****ngton University, who presented to the panel a large collection of
declassified do***ents concerning Posadas links with criminal acts.
The investigator invited Congressman Delahunt to consult the 700-plus
secret do***ents from the FBI and the CIA that were presented to the
judge in the immigration case of Orlando Bosch and which, if had not
been destroyed at that time, also demonstrate Posadas terrorist
character.
With Boschs reprieve on July 17, 1990 " by the father of the current
U.S. president who cast his own legal system to one side " and Posadas
current situation, "the United States finds itself in the frankly
inexplicable position of having not one but both men who our own
intelligence agencies identified as responsible for bringing down a
civilian airliner living free and unfettered lives in Florida,"
Kornbluh commented.
"In the midst of a war on terrorism, this has significant repercussions
for the United States."
Roseann Nenninger, the sister of a young Guyanese man who died in the
sabotage of the Cubana airliner in 1976, gave an emotional testimony,
choking back the tears, about the tragedy that her entire family
suffered because of the terrorist and CIA agent.
At the end of the hearing, Representative Delahunt confirmed that he
considered the investigation to be a priority and announced that he
wished to hear the testimonies of Freddy Lugo and Hernan Ricardo,
Posada and Boschs accomplices in the Barbados crime.
The Venezuelan government has been calling for the extradition of
Posada Carriles for more than two years now, while the U.S. government
has increased the obstacles in order to save the torturer, murderer and
terrorist who has been linked to the Miami mafia and the Bush clan for
decades.
*
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