Cuba Replies to US Justifications on Terrorism

United Nations, May 22

In a heated denouncement at the UN Security Council on Tuesday, Cuba rejected US justifications in the case of Luis Posada Carriles, an international terrorist recently released in US territory.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad said that his country is applying the law by banning Posada Carriles" extradition to Cuba or Venezuela, and that the case has not been closed.

In his response, Rodolfo Benitez, Counselor of the Cuban Mission to the UN, asked why the US allowed the unpunished entry of Posada Carriles to its territory and why it protected him during the months he stayed there as an illegal immigrant.

The Cuban diplomat also questioned why that individual was accused of minor migratory crimes although US authorities had all the evidence to try him as a terrorist.

Benitez added that even now, after his release, the US government has all the information and legal mechanisms to arrest Posada Carriles for his real crimes and has not done so.

He denounced that funds are collected with total impunity in Miami and other cities to perpetrate terrorist acts against the Island.

"Bank accounts that fund terrorism operate freely and normally in the United States, recruitment of terrorists and acquisition of weapons are allowed, as is the use of the territory by those who finance, plan and commit terrorist actions against Cuba," he stressed.