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(La Jornada) Everything seems to indicate that the U.S. administration strategy is to prolong, postpone and delay the trial of Luis Posada Carriles until he dies of old age in Miami. The last postponement was last Friday in El Paso. Judge Kathleen Cardone announced that the trial, initially scheduled for March 1, would be postponed indefinitely.

Posada Carriles is an international fugitive with 73 pending murder charges in Caracas. Venezuela formally requested his extradition on June 15, 2005, but Washington has chosen to prosecute him for having made false statements regarding his illegal entry to the United States.

The U.S. attorney’s office has evidence that Posada Carriles entered the country on a boat called Santrina with some of his conspirator friends. Nevertheless, Posada alleged that he had crossed the U.S.-Mexican border on foot when he was 79 years-old, a story nobody believes.

Posada’s lies were convenient for the Bush administration because they allowed it to block his extradition as the perjury charges were aired before a federal court.

After Barack Obama took power, the U.S. attorney added other charges, accusing Posada of blocking an investigation on international terrorism when he denied his role in the terrorist campaign against Cuba in 1997. This campaign was something that Posada Carriles had boasted about in an interview with The New York Times, admitting that he was the intellectual author of the bombings that killed Italian citizen Fabio de Celmo in Havana.

Every time Posada feels pressure on himself, he threatens to talk about his relation with the CIA. The documents presented by his lawyer before the court are full of these threats and insinuations; they even say that what Posada has done in Latin America has been “in Washington’s name.”

His novel legal strategy includes allegations that the CIA taught him how to lie, use fake names and carry false passports. He wants to show himself in court as if he were a soldier of the U.S.’s intelligence agency to allege that all the crimes he committed were under Washington’s supervision.

The U.S. attorney has reacted strongly to this strategy, because the last thing Washington wants is Langley’s hidden skeletons to be discovered. Posada is right about something: the CIA’s mendacity is broader than that of its agents. What was the role of the CIA in the dirty war in Latin America? Who was actually responsible for the Cubana de Aviación aircraft bombing in 1976 that left 73 civilians dead? The CIA, or Posada? What was the CIA’s role in the terrorist campaign against the Cuban tourist locations in 1997?

To prevent Posada from playing his last valuable card, thus telling all he knows, the U.S. administration has managed to block more than 90 percent of the documents presented in court. The district attorneys, defense attorneys and the judge are the only ones allowed to have access to them. Neither the press nor the audience have had access. Some journalists blame Judge Cardone for not keeping the “case open and clear.”

Oddly, the secrecy was requested by the U.S. attorney. A judge forcing the government to reveal delicate information that may allegedly damage the nation’s national security is very strange.

What is clear is that the true goals of the U.S. attorney are being accomplished. So far the legal process has been secret, and the case continues in a legal limbo without precise trial date. Judge Cardone’s decision announced a hearing for May 20, in which she wants to know the “status” of the case to determine if she can finally schedule a date for the trial.

Meanwhile, the Venezuelan government’s request is still pending and Posada Carriles continues having absolute impunity for having killed 73 innocent people on that passenger plane. When Posada’s attorneys meet the district attorneys next May 20 in El Paso to check the “status” of the case, is anybody going to tell the judge that this international terrorist has spent five years without responding to any of the criminal charges pending against him? Or that Giustino di Celmo has been waiting for 12 years for the killer of his sun Fabio to be processed? Or that the relatives of the victims of the Cubana de Aviación aircraft bombings have waited almost 34 years for justice in the attack that killed their loved ones? What are they waiting for? For the murderer to die of old age in Miami?

*José Pertierra is an attorney based in Washington. He represents the Venezuelan government in Luis Posada Carriles’ extradition request.

After continuing his reign of terror in Central America in the ensuing years, Posada Carriles eventually made his way illegally into the United States in March of 2005.  On June 15, 2005, Venezuela requested that the United States detain and extradite him, pursuant to treaties and international conventions.  The United States has thus far sidestepped our extradition request and instead charged him for minor immigration-related infractions. The terrorist remains free in the streets of Miami.

On this sad anniversary, the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in Washington, D.C., wishes to remember the victims of Cubana de Aviación 455:  Sabrina Paul, the little nine-year old Guyanese girl aboard the aircraft.  Nancy Uranga, the twenty-two year old Cuban fencer, pregnant with a child who never had a chance at life.  Raymond Persaud, the nineteen-year old medical student from Guyana on his way to medical school in Havana.  Carlos Cremata Trujillo, the forty-one year old flight dispatcher and amateur dramatist.  Gold medal nineteen-year old fencer from Havana, Enrique Figueredo del Valle.  Let us remember them, and all the 73 persons aboard that ill-fated passenger airplane who were brutally murdered by Luis Posada Carriles on October 6, 1976.  Each of them left family members behind: mothers, fathers, wives, husbands and children.  Only nine of the 73 bodies were recovered at sea.  The families have yet to bring their grief to closure.

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela will remain committed to bringing Luis Posada Carriles to Justice in Caracas for 73 counts of first-degree murder. We will never forget one of the most terrible acts of modern terrorism committed in the hemisphere.

Bernardo Alvarez Herrera
Ambassador of the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela in the United States
October 6, 2009.

During the closing ceremony of the IX Cuba-Venezuela Joint Commission, held Saturday, the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, denounced that the criminal and fugitive Luis Posada Carriles is free and lives in the United States.

Cuban President Raul Castro also attended the ceremony.

The Venezuelan leader remembered that the Cuban terrorist was sent to Venezuela to assassinate, as part of the repressive actions against leftist movements commanded by Washington, reported the web site of the state-owned Venezolana de Television.

“We must remember that the big terrorist Luis Posada Carriles was the chief of operations in the politic police department here (in Venezuela),” he said.

In this sense, the Venezuelan head of state said “President Obama, send the terrorist here, we are requesting him. He must be in prison, not freely walking in the streets of the United States.”

Chavez also pointed out the US illegal occupation of Guatanamo. “We’ll se what happens with Guatanamo and its prison. Guatanamo is a Cuban territory,” he stressed.

Venezuela has requested Posada Carriles’ extradition to judge him for exploding in 1976 a Cuban civil plane killing 73 people.

The terrorist, who draw up the crime in Venezuela, escape from a Venezuelan prison to avoid a public trial and nowadays lives in the United States.

So far the US administration has denied complying with the extradition demand issued by Venezuela, in spite of the already endorsed bilateral agreements on this regard.

Bolivarian News Agency (ABN) / Embassy of the Bolivarian of Venezuela Press and Communications Office / December 15, 2008

The book is a compilation of selected texts published in Cuba, collected by Canadian diligent journalist Jean Guy, and tells a reality never shown before thanks to the reliable testimonies given by the victims of the different attacks carried out by terrorist Luis Posada Carriles.

Roberto Hernandez, President of the Romulo Gallegos Latin American Research Foundation (Celarg), and the American lawyer Eva Golinger attended the event.

The book denounces that current President of the United States “George Bush has received several requests to indult Carriles before finishing his term, made by the Cuban-American mafias in Miami and Congress representatives,” the author said.

“The mayor concern is that Bush still has a couple of moths in power and must be thinking about the way to expand his presidential protection to this terrorist,” Guy said.

The journalist not only used documents and live sources to write his book, but he was in Panama during the controversial judicial process against Posada Carriles.

“It’s incredible, the books shows how the CIA looks and selects psychos carefully to put them in different countries of the world, especially in America Latina, which shows the dirty war they conduct.”

“There are a lot of unrevealed stories about US spying services and especially the damages they have caused to the Latin America,” he emphasized.

The Cuban terrorist Posada Carriles, nationalized Venezuelan, is accused of exploding in 1976 a Cuban aircraft killing 73 people. He was also part of the Yankee offensive during the failed Bay of Pig’s invasion and member of the repressive Venezuelan police in the 60’s and 70’s, known as “Belisario Captain”, causing several victims.

Bolivarian News Agency (ABN) / Embassy of the Bolivarian of Venezuela Press and Communications Office / November 14, 2008

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.”

Originally published in Democracy Now

A new phase has opened in a case that highlights a major gap in how the U.S. and many others view international terrorism. Luis Posada Carriles walked out of a New Mexico jail last week, free on bail. Posada was being held on immigration charges but many want to see him tried for terrorism in connection with the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people.  [includes rush transcript]

A new phase has opened in a case that highlights a major gap in how the US and many others view international terrorism. Luis Posada Carriles walked out of a New Mexico jail last week, free on bail. Posada was being held on immigration charges. But most people who know his name want to see him tried for terrorism.

Posada is the anti-Castro Cuban militant connected to the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. He is a former CIA operative who has worked for years to bring down the Cuban government. He has been detained in the U.S. on immigration charges since he snuck into the country in 2005. The U.S. has refused to extradite him to Cuba or Venezuela.

On Sunday Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez accused the U.S. of protecting international terrorism and said he would take the case to UN. Cuba has also renewed calls for Posada’s extradition. This is Cuban National Assembly president Ricardo Alarcon.

• Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban National Assembly.

Posada is now in Miami ahead of his immigration trial next month. Last week Posada’s attorney Louis Fernandez argued Posada’s past is irrelevant to his status today.

• Luis Fernandez, attorney for Luis Posada Carriles.

We go now to Venezeula to speak with Jose Pertierra, a Washington DC-based immigration lawyer. He has been retained by the Venezuelan government to represent it in the Luis Posada carriles case here in the United States.

• Jose Pertierra, lawyer who representing the Venezuelan government in the Luis Posada carriles case here in the United States. He joins us on the line from Caracas.

AMY GOODMAN: A new phase has opened in a case that highlights a major gap in how the US and many others view international terrorism. Luis Posada Carriles walked out of a New Mexico jail last week, free on bail. Posada was being held on immigration charges, but many say he should be tried for terrorism. Posada is the anti-Castro Cuban militant who was connected to the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that resulted in the deaths of all seventy-three people on board. Posada Carriles is a former CIA operative who has worked for years to bring down the Cuban government. He has been detained in the US on immigration charges since he snuck into the United States in 2005. The US has refused to extradite him to Cuba or Venezuela.

On Sunday, the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused the US of protecting international terrorism and said that Posada Carriles, that his case should be taken to the United Nations. Cuba has also renewed calls for Posada’s extradition. This is Cuban National Assembly president Ricardo Alarcon.

RICARDO ALARCON: [translated] According to international law, according to antiterrorism agreements, when there is an attack on a civil plane, the country that has a suspect in its custody and is asked for him to be extradited to another place so that he can be investigated and tried, that country that has him has only two options: to extradite him or, without exception, to try him itself. Posada is not a suspect. Posada was being tried, formally accused over twenty years ago by another Venezuelan government, by other Venezuelan courts that have been demanding him ever since then.

AMY GOODMAN: Posada is now in Miami, ahead of his immigration trial next month. Last week, Posada’s attorney Luis Fernandez argued Posada’s past is irrelevant to his status today.

LUIS FERNANDEZ: This decision by the appellate court to uphold Judge Cardone’s brilliant decision was very important, because the government was banking on using tactics of things that happened or alleged things that happened over thirty years ago to dissuade a judge from giving a defendant his right to go out and be out on bond while he’s pending trial.

AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Venezuela, where we’re joined by Jose Pertierra. He’s the Washington, D.C.-based attorney who has been retained by the Venezuelan government to represent the country of Venezuela in the Luis Posada Carriles case here in the United States. We welcome you to Democracy Now!, Jose Pertierra.

JOSE PERTIERRA: Good morning, Amy. It’s a pleasure to be with you.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, can you talk about the significance of this development of Posada being released from jail?

JOSE PERTIERRA: Amy, I don’t think there’s any doubt that Luis Posada Carriles is a terrorist and has been a terrorist for years and that he was the mastermind behind the downing of the plane in 1976 that killed those seventy-three innocent people.

What we’re seeing now, though, by his release from prison is the conduct of the United States throughout this case, that rather than obey the law and abide by its international treaty obligations and by US law, the United States is neither extraditing him nor prosecuting him for murder, but is instead trying to hide behind judicial decisions that the Bush administration has almost invited by its conduct. Let me just briefly tell you what I mean. We contend that the White House has manipulated the US judicial system in such a way as to get exactly the kind of decision that it wanted in the immigration case and also the case that’s presently pending in El Paso. Rather than charge him for murder, the US has charged him only with lying on an immigration form.

The US has refused to present any witnesses, any evidence, any documents, despite a wealth of documents that we have submitted and that exist in CIA files. They’ve failed to cross-examine any witnesses. It’s a manipulation of the judicial system that has de-legitimized the US judicial system. You know, we see the scandal that’s occurring now with the firings of prosecutors who wanted to implement the law and abide by their conscience. This is a case where prosecutors didn’t obey their conscience; they obeyed the White House. And in so doing, they have released this international terrorist into the streets of Miami.

AMY GOODMAN: Jose Pertierra, can you outline the evidence that there is that he was connected to the 1976 Cuban airliner bombing that killed all seventy-three people on board?

JOSE PERTIERRA: Well, Amy, there were four people directly involved: two people who actually placed the two bombs on the plane, Hernan Ricardo and Freddy Lugo; and two masterminds, Mr. Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch. Both Bosch and Posada are free in Miami, one pardoned by Bush, father, the other one freed by Bush, Jr. The two people who placed the bombs, Hernan Ricardo and Freddy Lugo, were convicted in Caracas to twenty years in jail, and they’ve served their time and have now been released. Both of those men confessed to the authorities in Trinidad, where they were captured, and their confessions are even—some of them are even in handwritten form—that they received training in explosives from the CIA, that they worked for the Venezuelan Secret Intelligence Agency at the time, and that Luis Posada Carriles was their boss who directed them. We have their confessions. We have telephone calls that were placed by these men to Mr. Posada Carriles in Caracas. Although they didn’t reach him, they left a message in coded words saying that the bus had crashed and the dogs had died, referring to the plane and the passengers. These were coded words that were used.

We also have a wealth of CIA and FBI declassified documents that show that Posada Carriles even bragged about the downing of the plane before it happened. Posada himself talked to CIA sources in Caracas and said that a Cuban plane—that we’re going to down a Cuban plane and that Orland Bosch, his accomplice, has all the details. Those documents can be found on the George Washington University’s National Security Archive website for all to see.

This is a man who was indicted in Caracas for seventy-three counts of murder in relation to the downing of the plane. While the case was pending and before judgment could be reached, he escaped from prison in 1985 and has been an international fugitive since. The case in Venezuela could not proceed when he escaped, because under Venezuelan law, if you escape, the process stops. There’s no in absentia verdicts under Venezuelan law. So the warrant was issued, and now what Venezuela is asking is that the White House abide by its treaty obligations to Venezuela and return him to finish his trial here.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re in Venezuela right now, Jose Pertierra. You represent the Venezuelan government.

JOSE PERTIERRA: Pardon me?

AMY GOODMAN: You’re in Venezuela now. You represent the Venezuelan government in this case. The US said that they wouldn’t extradite Carriles to Venezuela because they were concerned he would be tortured there. Your response?

JOSE PERTIERRA: I’m glad you raise that, Amy, because there has been a great deal of confusion about this, and I think on purpose. The White House wanted to confuse all the legal issues surrounding this case. What we have is an immigration judge who decided that Posada could not be removed or deported under immigration laws to Venezuela. However, under US law, extradition trumps immigration rulings. That is to say, he can be extradited despite this decision by an immigration judge that he should not be deported.

And the lead case on that is the precedent-setting case from 1963 by the US Board of Immigration Appeals, ironically enough dealing with a Venezuelan, a Venezuelan dictator by the name of Peres Jimenez, who had come to the United States and sought asylum and he was wanted in Venezuela for corruption. The Board of Immigration Appeals held that deportation proceedings should be suspended and the extradition process should proceed, because extradition trumps immigration.

And secondly, Amy, the law is very clear that if the United States for political reasons decides not to extradite an individual, it is obligated under international treaty conventions that deal with terrorism to prosecute that individual for the crimes committed abroad, but to prosecute him in the United States. And the language of those conventions are very clear. It says, “shall, without exception whatsoever, prosecute the individual in the territory where he is found.” So there is no wiggle room there. The law says you extradite or prosecute, but you don’t free him into the streets of Miami and charge him only with merely lying on an immigration form to an immigration official.

AMY GOODMAN: Jose Pertierra, I want to thank you very much for joining us. Jose Pertierra is a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer who is now in Venezuela. He has been hired by the Venezuelan government to represent Venezuela in the case against Posada Carriles. We thank you very much for joining us. We will certainly continue to follow this case.

As it is very well know, Mr. Posada Carriles is responsible for numerous terrorist actions against Cuba and other countries, including the terrorist attack on a Cubana de Aviación aircraft in October 1976, which caused the death to 73 innocent civilians from different countries, for which the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has requested his extradition to the Government of the United States.

Despite this fact, he was been detained in United States territory under a simple accusation of an immigration violation, while the Venezuelan request has been ignored.

The Movement reaffirms its strong and unequivocal condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, as well as all acts, methods and practices of terrorism wherever, by whosoever, and against whomsoever committed, including those in which States are directly or indirectly involved, which are unjustifiable whatever the considerations or factors that may be invoked to justify them.

The Movement urges all States once again, consistent with the UN Charter, to fulfill their obligations under international law and international humanitarian law in the fight against terrorism, including by prosecuting or, where appropriate, extraditing the perpetrators of terrorist acts; by preventing the organization, instigation or financing of terrorist acts against other States from within or outside their territories or by organizations based in their territories; by refraining from organizing, instigating, assisting, financing or participating in terrorist acts in the territories of other States; by refraining from encouraging activities within their territories directed towards the commission of such acts; by refraining from allowing the use of their territories for planning, training or financing for such acts; or by refraining from supplying arms or other weapons that could be used for terrorist acts in other States.

The Movement demands that all States refrain from extending, political, diplomatic, moral or material support for terrorism, and in this context, urges all States, consistent with the UN Charter and in fulfilling their obligations under international law, to ensure that refugee status or any other legal status is not abused by the perpetrators, organizers or facilitators of terrorist acts, and that claims of political motivation by them are not recognized as grounds for refusing requests for their extradition.

As it was agreed by the Heads of State and Government of the Non-Aligned Movement at the 14th Summit Conference held in Havana on September 2006, the Movement reiterates its support for the extradition request that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela interposed to the Government of the United States to bring Mr. Luis Posada Carriles to justice.

New York, 20 April, 2007

Statement of Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez

1. Luis Posada Carriles is the Osama Bin Laden of Latin America. A terrorist. A man who is responsible for the blowing up of a civilian airplane with 73 passengers aboard. Recruited by the CIA in 1962, his is a curriculum of terror that includes murder, attempted murder, torture and sabotage over four decades.

2. Posada reportedly entered the United States in March of 2005. Rather than immediately detain him, the Department of Homeland Security allowed him to freely walk the streets of Miami and paint canvases in a luxury apartment in Miami for weeks.

3. While Posada was still free in Miami (on May 13, 2005), Venezuela formally requested that the United States detain him for the purpose of extraditing him to Venezuela to stand trial for 73 counts of murder involving the downing of a passenger airplane in 1976. The United States has yet to place an extradition detainer on him.

4. Four days later, Posada called a bizarre press conference in Miami and bragged that the DHS was not looking for him. Having no other option in the face of the embarrassing declarations made by Posada, DHS detained him after the press conference and gingerly escorted him in a golf cart as if he were a retiree who needed help to get around the golf course. Television images show that he was not even handcuffed by DHS agents. Ask anyone who has been arrested with DHS agents if Posada´s treatment at all resembles their own.

5. In a statement issued a few hours after his detention in South Florida on May 17, the Immigration, Customs and Enforcement Agency (ICE) of the Department of Homeland Security said that ICE would not deport Posada to Cuba or (in a veiled reference to Venezuela) to “a country acting on behalf of Cuba.”

6. Incredibly, ICE announced the United States government’s intentions concerning this terrorist before the extradition or the immigration cases had even begun.

7. On June 10, 2005 Venezuela renewed its request for the preventive detention of Posada for the purpose of extradition. Rather than placing an extradition detainer on him, the DOJ tabled the request and has yet to act on it.

8. On June 15, 2005 Venezuela formally requested the extradition of Posada Carriles, with voluminous documentary evidence in support of the request. Although the Department of State referred the case to lawyers at the Department of Justice to prosecute the extradition request more than three months ago, DOJ lawyers have yet to file it with the federal district court.

9. Rather than to respect the extradition treaties it has signed over the years, the United States chose to treat Posada Carriles´case as a mere immigration matter and charged him only with illegal entry into the country.

10. Throughout the life of the immigration case before Judge Abbott, DHS was more concerned with the appearance of prosecution rather than with prosecution itself. DHS failed to cross-examine Posada´s only witness, Joaquín Chaffardet, or to point out to the Judge that Chaffardet is a biased witnessed who has been Posada´s close associate for almost forty years. Instead Chaffardet was allowed to testify as if he were an objective expert on human rights condition in Venezuela.

11. DHS called no witnesses submitted no evidence and virtually winked at defense counsel and at the Judge about the U.S. government’s preference that Posada be granted Convention Against Torture relief.

12. There isn’t a shred of evidence that Posada would be tortured in Venezuela. On the contrary, as our Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez stated last week, Venezuela is prepared to offer him a house made of gold and feed him caviar every day if he is extradited to stand trial in Venezuela.

13. Indeed, if we examine our respective records on torture, a prisoner is more likely to be tortured in the custody of the U.S. government than in the custody of Venezuelan officials.

14. There is a cynical double standard at work here fighting an “ a la carte” war on terror. On the one hand, the United States presents itself to the world as the leader of a global war against terrorism, invades countries it accuses of terrorism and restricts the civil rights of Americans in order to combat terrorism. On the other hand, when it comes to its own terrorist whom it has recruited and coddled for years the United States refuses to allow that he is tried for some of the heinous crimes he has committed.

15. The only way out of this double standard is for the United States to immediately proceed with the extradition case. The Government must present our extradition request to the appropriate federal judge with no further delay. The victims of Posada’s crime have waited long enough.

Alvarez added that Venezuela respects the legal processes of the United States, but cannot accept that the Posada Carriles case be treated as a simple immigration-related matter. “No one would understand this and it would prove to contradict everything the Bush Administration has said and fought for in the war on terrorism,” he noted.

Venezuela hopes that the terms of the extradition treaty between the United States and Venezuela be respected, specifically those provisions related to fugitives of the law. Posada Carriles, who is of Cuban and Venezuelan nationality, is accused of homicide and escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has stated that he will await the outcome of the case, but has also stated that if the terms of the existing extradition treaty are not respected, he will evaluate diplomatic relations with the United States, much as any other country would do.

Ambassador Alvarez explained that on May 13, 2005, Venezuela delivered to the U.S. State Department a request for the preventative detention with the purpose of extradition of Posada Carriles. On this he stated: “We are still awaiting that the competent authorities on this matter study the case and inform the Government of Venezuela of their decision and what procedures they will follow.”

Venezuela introduced the request prior to Posada Carriles’ capture by U.S. immigration authorities and after he appeared at a press conference. Venezuela made the request once it was apparent that Posada Carriles was residing in the city of Miami.

Ambassador Alvarez similarly ratified that the Government of Venezuela has no intentions of sending Posada Carriles to Cuba, because “there are no legal grounds on which to do so,” he stated. “The Constitution prohibits this from happening, a fact that various government ministries have verified,” he continued.

Alvarez reiterated statements made by President Chavez this last Sunday, when he insisted upon continuing the international fight against terrorism and using international instruments that further that fight. “In this he was referring to the presence of Posada Carriles in the United States and the crimes this man has committed,” explained Alvarez.

Rumors have spread that Posada Carriles’ lawyers will have a hearing a request that he be freed on bail. “We hope that this is simply a matter of rumors,” stated Alvarez, “since sufficient evidence exists to link this individual to various terrorist attacks over the years. We hope that if this hearing be granted, the U.S. government heed our request for Posada Carriles’ preventative detention with the goal of extradition,” he continued. “It would be contradictory that a man accused of terrorism be freed on bail.”

Various different sectors within the United States have requested that U.S. President George W. Bush not allow Posada Carriles to be granted political asylum, and that he support his extradition to Venezuela.

Ambassador Alvarez highlighted a letter sent by twenty members of the U.S. Congress to President Bush, in which they recounted the crimes Posada Carriles has been accused of. The text of the letter states: “On August 26, 2003, President Bush stated that ‘if you offer refuge to a terrorist, if you feed a terrorist, you’re as guilty as the terrorist.’”

The letter sent to President Bush also noted that “many innocent victims that were Cuban were killed at the hands of Posada, in crimes similarly horrifying as those that killed innocent victims in the United States on September 11, 2001. Not only is it unimaginable to grant this terrorist asylum, but also to deny justice to all the victims of his crimes.”