chatnoir
2014-12-18 15:18:06 UTC
https://consortiumnews.com/2014/12/17/letting-a-cuban-terrorist-go-free/
intro:
From the Archive: As much as U.S. officials have decried "terrorism" - even equating harboring a terrorist with the actual deed - they have applied a completely different standard to "our" terrorists who are protected from extradition and treated with kid gloves, as Robert Parry reported in 2011.
By Robert Parry (Originally published on April 9, 2011)
excerpt:
The acquittal of right-wing Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles on charges of lying to immigration officials in 2011 underscored the U.S. double standard on terrorists, applying delicate legal rules to "ours" and a rough-and-tumble approach to "theirs."
In the Posada case, federal prosecutors sought to prove that Posada lied at an immigration hearing when he denied a role in a lethal bombing campaign inside Cuba in the 1990s. The perjury case rested heavily on taped admissions that Posada made in an interview with a New York Times reporter, although he later recanted those statements.
Luis Posada Carriles
Luis Posada Carriles
More notoriously, however, Posada was implicated in the mid-air bombing of a Cubana Airliner in 1976, killing 73 people onboard including the country's youth fencing team. Though the evidence of Posada's role in that attack is strong, U.S. authorities have ruled out turning him over to Venezuela or Cuba to face prosecution for mass murder.
As the acquittal on April 8, 2011, showed, Posada continued to earn lots of sympathy because the former CIA operative was viewed by some as a Cold War hero who has battled Fidel Castro for many years. At Posada's perjury trial in El Paso, Texas, his lawyers appealed to the jury to let him live out his life in Miami. The jury apparently agreed, acquitting the 83-year-old after only three hours of deliberation.
intro:
From the Archive: As much as U.S. officials have decried "terrorism" - even equating harboring a terrorist with the actual deed - they have applied a completely different standard to "our" terrorists who are protected from extradition and treated with kid gloves, as Robert Parry reported in 2011.
By Robert Parry (Originally published on April 9, 2011)
excerpt:
The acquittal of right-wing Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles on charges of lying to immigration officials in 2011 underscored the U.S. double standard on terrorists, applying delicate legal rules to "ours" and a rough-and-tumble approach to "theirs."
In the Posada case, federal prosecutors sought to prove that Posada lied at an immigration hearing when he denied a role in a lethal bombing campaign inside Cuba in the 1990s. The perjury case rested heavily on taped admissions that Posada made in an interview with a New York Times reporter, although he later recanted those statements.
Luis Posada Carriles
Luis Posada Carriles
More notoriously, however, Posada was implicated in the mid-air bombing of a Cubana Airliner in 1976, killing 73 people onboard including the country's youth fencing team. Though the evidence of Posada's role in that attack is strong, U.S. authorities have ruled out turning him over to Venezuela or Cuba to face prosecution for mass murder.
As the acquittal on April 8, 2011, showed, Posada continued to earn lots of sympathy because the former CIA operative was viewed by some as a Cold War hero who has battled Fidel Castro for many years. At Posada's perjury trial in El Paso, Texas, his lawyers appealed to the jury to let him live out his life in Miami. The jury apparently agreed, acquitting the 83-year-old after only three hours of deliberation.