Posada Carriles to stay in US: Washington shields CIA terrorist from prosecution

The ruling is the latest chapter in the decades-long US government protection of Posada and fellow Cuban exile terrorists. In this case, Washington is shielding him from prosecution for masterminding the 1976 terrorist bombing of a Cuban jetliner carrying passengers from Venezuela, in which 73 people were killed.

Venezuela issued a formal request last May for Posada’s extradition to stand trial, but the US authorities have flouted international law, refusing to arrest him on criminal charges and hand him over. Instead, after the extradition request, they picked him up on charges of entering the US illegally. This was done in order to protect him. Since then, US officials have treated his case as a run-of-the mill immigration matter.

The Venezuelan government has threatened to break diplomatic relations with Washington over its refusal to extradite Posada.

The ruling issued by Judge William Abbott in El Paso was farcical, exhibiting an unhealthy fascination with Posada, whom the judge described as “like a character out of Robert Ludlum’s espionage thrillers, with all the plot twists and turns Ludlum is famous for.”

Abbott claimed that he would have made the same ruling for “the most heinous terrorist or mass murderer”—Posada is both—“if he or she could establish... the probability of torture in the future.” Earlier in the proceedings, he said that he would grant deferral of deportation to Adolf Hitler if Hitler could prove such a threat.

The judge’s decision was made a foregone conclusion by the US government—which ostensibly was arguing for deportation. The Homeland Security Department prosecutor made no attempt to rebut unsubstantiated claims by Posada’s lawyers that he would likely be tortured if returned to Venezuela.

The only testimony offered to substantiate the Venezuelan torture claim came from one Joaquín Chaffardet, a Caracas lawyer and Posada’s long-time associate. “All political detainees in Venezuela have been subjected to torture,” he claimed.

The prosecution made no attempt to cross-examine Chaffardet on his 40-year political and business relationship with Posada, allowing him to pose as an objective expert on conditions in Venezuela. Had the government lawyer questioned Chaffardet, the issue of torture would have emerged in a different light.

The two men met in Venezuela in the late 1960s, when Chaffardet was the secretary general of the DISIP, the Venezuelan secret police. He hired Posada as chief of operations of this repressive force. The Cuban terrorist had been trained by the CIA and the US military in interrogation techniques, torture and bomb-making. When he arrived in Venezuela in 1967, Posada was on the payroll of the CIA.

Posada put his US training to work, directing the interrogation and torture of political prisoners. Survivors of Posada’s clandestine prison have testified to being subjected to beatings, electric shocks, mock executions and other forms of torture. A number of these prisoners were murdered or disappeared.

Afterwards, Chaffardet was a partner with Posada in a private security firm from which the bombing of the Cuban jetliner was organized. Chaffardet is a fanatical right-wing opponent of the government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/posa-s29.shtml