Venezuela demands US hand over 'terrorist'
[I love how abc makes the judgement call to put Terrorist in quotes, as if Posada is not a terrorist]
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Venezuela's government has accused US immigration authorities of protecting a Cuban exile who Caracas wants extradited to face trial for a 1976 plane bombing that killed 73 people.
The US Immigration Customs and Enforcement Agency ruled on Wednesday that Luis Posada Carriles, who was detained by US authorities last May after illegally slipping into the country from Mexico, would stay in custody.
Venezuela, which has strained relations with the US under leftist President Hugo Chavez, rejected this an attempt to avoid its request for extradition of Posada, a naturalised Venezuelan and former CIA operative.
Both Venezuela and Cuba charge Posada masterminded the attack on a Cuban airliner as it took off from Barbados and view him as a terrorist.
The two countries are ideological allies and accuse the United States of using double standards in its treatment of Posada, given its "war on terrorism".
"We again call on the White House to honour its international treaty obligations and either extradite or prosecute Luis Posada Carriles for 73 counts of first degree murder," the Venezuelan embassy in Washington said in a statement on Wednesday.
A US judge ruled in September that Posada could face torture in Cuba or Venezuela and should not be deported to those countries.
The case has tested already tense relations between the United States and Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil exporter and a top supplier to the US market.
Posada is being held in El Paso, Texas. Immigration authorities said in a statement that Wednesday's ruling followed a routine review, and held out the possibility that he could eventually be deported to a third country, not Cuba or Venezuela.
Posada denies involvement in the Barbados bombing, but admits working against Cuban President Fidel Castro.
Recently declassified US documents show that Posada worked for the CIA at least from 1965 until June 1976.
A former CIA collaborator, he escaped from Venezuelan prison in 1985 awaiting retrial for the bombing.
A military court initially acquitted him in the 1980s.
In 1985 he turned up in El Salvador where he helped the US government ferry supplies to Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
He is accused of taking part in numerous plots to kill Fidel Castro, including one to assassinate the Cuban leader during an Ibero-American summit in Panama in 2000.
He was jailed for eight years in Panama but was pardoned last year and appeared to be laying low until reports began circulating that he had entered the United States.
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Venezuela's government has accused US immigration authorities of protecting a Cuban exile who Caracas wants extradited to face trial for a 1976 plane bombing that killed 73 people.
The US Immigration Customs and Enforcement Agency ruled on Wednesday that Luis Posada Carriles, who was detained by US authorities last May after illegally slipping into the country from Mexico, would stay in custody.
Venezuela, which has strained relations with the US under leftist President Hugo Chavez, rejected this an attempt to avoid its request for extradition of Posada, a naturalised Venezuelan and former CIA operative.
Both Venezuela and Cuba charge Posada masterminded the attack on a Cuban airliner as it took off from Barbados and view him as a terrorist.
The two countries are ideological allies and accuse the United States of using double standards in its treatment of Posada, given its "war on terrorism".
"We again call on the White House to honour its international treaty obligations and either extradite or prosecute Luis Posada Carriles for 73 counts of first degree murder," the Venezuelan embassy in Washington said in a statement on Wednesday.
A US judge ruled in September that Posada could face torture in Cuba or Venezuela and should not be deported to those countries.
The case has tested already tense relations between the United States and Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil exporter and a top supplier to the US market.
Posada is being held in El Paso, Texas. Immigration authorities said in a statement that Wednesday's ruling followed a routine review, and held out the possibility that he could eventually be deported to a third country, not Cuba or Venezuela.
Posada denies involvement in the Barbados bombing, but admits working against Cuban President Fidel Castro.
Recently declassified US documents show that Posada worked for the CIA at least from 1965 until June 1976.
A former CIA collaborator, he escaped from Venezuelan prison in 1985 awaiting retrial for the bombing.
A military court initially acquitted him in the 1980s.
In 1985 he turned up in El Salvador where he helped the US government ferry supplies to Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
He is accused of taking part in numerous plots to kill Fidel Castro, including one to assassinate the Cuban leader during an Ibero-American summit in Panama in 2000.
He was jailed for eight years in Panama but was pardoned last year and appeared to be laying low until reports began circulating that he had entered the United States.
posted by Alice at
Friday, March 24, 2006
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