If Julian Assange is a Terrorist,
then What is Luis Posada Carriles?*
By JEAN GUY ALLARD - CUBANRADIO.CU,
January 21st 2011
The trials of the creator of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange and of international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles began with less than a 24-hour difference on January 10 and 11, one in London and the other one in El Paso, Texas. The anomaly immediately catching the attention of many is that the champion of freedom of information will be accused of the very serious crime of terrorism, while the confessed terrorist will be tried for migratory crimes sanctioned by a sentence he has already served.
The ANSA news agency reports that the request of extradition made by Sweden for the charge of “sexual molestation” against Assange was transferred from a court in the center of London to Belmarsh Court, specializing in terrorism issues and annexed to a maximum security prison, rebaptized years ago by the BBC as “The British Guantanamo”.
Assange will appear in court on a charge of terrorism, which implies, according to British laws, his arrest and confinement.
Luis Posada Carriles will continue to be free on bail when he appears in the United States before a judge who acquitted him in a first trial and who openly expressed her sympathy for him in a courtroom full of followers, many of them with a terrorist past.
A spokesperson of the British legal authorities stated that the transfer to the court of Belmarsh, in the southeast area of the capital, is due to “logistical reasons” and not, as stated by WikiLeaks, due to US pressure.
SPEED UP FOR ASSANGE, DELAYED FOR POSADA
The truth is that while in the case of Assange, the procedures have been speed up, skipping stages as much as possible after a series of tricks to silence the Australian man, in the case of Posada Carriles, a former CIA agent who served the Agency as an instructor of explosives, a torturer, a police captain, a hired assassin, a terrorist and a promoter of assassination, records of dilatory maneuvers to draw out his case are surpassed.
In addition to use a panoply of dirty tricks to pressure Assange, sabotage his operations system, take away his income, recover the leaks, manipulate the content, US agencies have terrorized the man who dared to open the valves of the huge can of diplomatic trash of the United States.
Hundreds of texts have been written, books have been published and documentaries have been made about the criminal record of Posada, the Klaus Barbie of US intelligence.
On May 17, 2005, at 1:30 pm, Luis Posada Carriles was arrested near Miami, and taken in a golf cart to a helicopter, “with every courtesy possible”, for his transfer to the offices of the Department of Homeland Security.
On April 1st, 2005, a lawyer for Posada Carriles, Eduardo Soto, confirmed in Miami that his client - who illegally entered US territory on board a shrimp vessel owned by a kingpin of the Cuban-American mafia - would ask for asylum to stay in the country permanently.
In spite of the accusations presented in Caracas for his participation in the terrorist attack against a Cuban aircraft that killed all 73 people on board in 1976; his arrest in Panama in 2000, in connection with a plan for an assassination attempt against Cuban leader Fidel Castro; his public acceptance for having organized a terrorist campaign against tourist facilities in Havana in 1997; and his close links with terrorist networks, Posada Carriles received full support from the US government.
On September 27, 2005, an immigration judge in El Paso, Texas, William Abbott, following federal instructions, used the absurd testimony of an old accomplice of Posada and former official of the Venezuelan secret police, Joaquin Chaffardet, to rule that he could not be deported to Venezuela, from where he escaped prison and fled justice in 1985.
GETTING RID OF THE “HOT POTATO”
Four months later, on January 24, 2006, three days before the inauguration of Honduran President, Manuel Zelaya, The Miami Herald cited what it called “fragments” of a statement by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau (ICE), that pointed out the following: “ICE is progressing in carrying out of the removal of Mr. Posada from the US”.
The White House – in the face of an international scandal – assessed that the best way to get rid of the “hot potato” - the former agent, terrorist, torturer and assassin, was to find him refuge anywhere outside US territory.
Three days later, on January 27, 2006, US ambassador to Honduras, Charles “Charlie” Ford, visited Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, on the day of his inauguration, to make an insolent request.
“Ambassador Charles Ford came to ask me to grant a visa to Posada Carriles”, said Zelaya later.
“It was impossible to give a visa to Luis Posada Carriles, since he was questioned for terrorist acts. They defend that kind of terrorism, I vouch for that”, he underlined.
On April 19, 2007, Posada Carriles, found not guilty by Cardone, was back in Miami not to set foot in a detention center ever again.
BROWNFIELD: “POSADA DOESN’T PUT ANYBODY AT RISK”
On March 18, 2008, as a response to statements made by Cuba and Venezuela at the United Nations, the person in charge of legal affairs in the US mission, Caroline Wilson, pointed out with candor that her country “had carefully followed the legal procedures in force in the case of Posada Carriles”.
“As happens in democracies in the world, a person can’t be tried or extradited if there isn’t enough evidence that he committed the crime he’s accused of”, she asserted.
In July 2008, US ambassador to Venezuela at the time, William Brownfield, in statements to the Panorama newspaper, in Maracaibo, made it clear that the United States had no intention whatsoever of putting Posada at the disposal of Venezuelan justice, which was claiming and continues to claim him.
“Mr. Luis Posada Carriles doesn’t represent an imminent danger for anybody”, Brownfield said, making it clear that the US would never turn over its veteran agent.
Ironically, a few days before the Brownfield blunder, Sub-Secretary of State Thomas Shannon, today US ambassador in Brazil, assured the OAS that the US Department of Justice was “still carrying out investigations” about Posada Carriles.
While Assange is hastily taken from a minor court to another one that can lock him up for good, the Venezuelan government is waiting for an answer, for more than five years now, to its extradition request for terrorist Posada Carriles.
Assange, the Web idealist demonized by major communication networks and persecuted by US agencies, will soon know how imperial justice gives a piece of its mind, with or without intermediaries.
Ignored by an accomplice press, Posada, the mercenary assassin, will keep on evading laws and haunting the dozens of victims and relatives of victims of his crimes, who have been devastated by the permanent despicable and cowardly willingness of those serving the empire.
* Url:http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5949
