May 9, 2007. The resolution of Luis Posada Carriles' legal problems is a bad joke both inside the United States and abroad. Federal Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso, Texas dismissed the case against former CIA agent Posada Carriles, who was to stand trial on Friday on seven immigration counts. Now it is crystal clear that it was only due to constant demands for justice made from Cuba and the international community that the U.S. administration went to the trouble of pretending that they were actually following a legal course in this case. The White House couldn't label Posada as a terrorist, because they were reluctant to try him for what he really is. Now, he won't even have to explain why he lied to U.S. immigration officers when he entered the United States illegally. Back then, he said that he had entered the U.S. by crosing the the border with Mexico, despite proof in the hands of the FBI of what President Fidel Castro had said about Posada arriving in Florida from Mexico on board Santrina Yacht. History indeed repeats itself. Seventeen years ago it was George Bush, Sr. who followed a similar path to exonerate Orlando Bosch -- another terrorist mastermind of the 1976 mid-air sabotage bombing of a Cubana airliner off the coast of Barbados that killed all 73 people on board. Apparently, George Bush, Jr. is making sure that any involvement his family or any other sector of the U.S. government might have with terrorist actions against Cuba hatched in the United States will not be exposed. The White House is entirely responsible for the fact that Luis Posada Carriles is now a free man. The decision had already been made. Even if he had gone to trial on Friday, the sentence would surely have been ridiculously light and he would have been released short thereafter. The issue that remains now is the extradition request made by the government of Venezuela in 2005; or the possibility of having a court in New Jersey try Posada for his responsibility in the terrorist actions carried out in Havana in 1997. On the other hand, Democratic Representative for Massachusetts William Delahunt, has asked Congress to hold a hearing on the way the U.S. administration has handled this case. Delahunt has said that on both sides of the aisle there are people who oppose the release of Posada because of his long criminal record. Documents released over the past several days reveal that both the FBI and the CIA had evidence of Posada's responsibility in the sabotage bombing of the Cuban airliner over 30 years ago. Delahunt even sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, demanding an explanation from the Justice Department for not enforcing the Patriot Act to prevent the release of Posada Cariles. In that letter, Delahunt says that the release of Posada compromises the nation's commitment to the war on terror. Thus far, no one should doubt that the whole case against Posada has been a mockery of justice. And that the United States lied to everyone about their alleged crusade against terror. It seems that the current Administration never imagined that the truth would be so quickly exposed, and that they would go down in history as an Administration that shelters the very kind they say they need to prosecute. They thought that their supposed war on terror was the perfect excuse to go around the world unchecked, invading any country they pleased. (Cubaminrex-RHC)
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