Venezuela formally submits extradition request to U.S.
Campaign News | Thursday, 16 June 2005
CIA documents prove he was involved in airliner bombing
By: Venezuelanalysis.com
Caracas, Venezuela, June 15, 2005-Venezuela’s embassy in the U.S. announced that it delivered the formal extradition request for Luis Posada Carriles, the Cuban-Venezuelan accused of terrorism, to the U.S. State Department today.
This move completes the the steps the Venezuelan government must undertake to have Posada Carriles extradited.
Last week, the Venezuelan embassy had submitted a dossier of documentation to supplement its earlier request for the U.S. government to arrest Posada Carriles. The Bush administration had turned down that earlier request on the grounds that insufficient documentation had been provided to justify Posada’s arrest. Venezuela and the U.S. have an extradition treat that dates back to 1923.
Posada Carriles is wanted by Venezuela in connection with the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner, in which 73 people were killed. Posada had been imprisoned for this crime, but escaped from prison while his case was on appeal. He is also suspected of having participated in the bombing of Cuban hotels and was charged of having planned the assassination of Fidel Castro in 2000.
U.S. immigration authorities detained Posada a few weeks ago, on the charge that he entered the country illegally. Since then he has applied for political asylum in the U.S. and he is waiting for his case to be heard. Venezuela argues that its extradition request should take precedence over the immigration case because, “Both the noted Extradition Treaty and State Department regulations establish that priority should be given to the extradition process.”
It was said that the U.S. could deport Posada to Mexico, the country from which he entered the U.S. illegally, or to Italy or to El Salvador, both countries that had indicated an interest in Posada’s extradition. However, the Venezuelan embassy’s communiqué argues, “With the delivery of the formal extradition request and pursuant to the provisions of the Extradition Treaty between the United States and Venezuela, no other country can now claim precedence in extraditing Mr. Posada Carriles.”
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1663
CIA revelations about Posada prove US diplomats conspired to save him from Venezuela
By RICARDO ALARCÓN
The secret documents recently disclosed by the National Security Archive throw new light on the responsibility of the government of the United States--and especially of the CIA, which was directed at that time by George H. W. Bush--in the horrendous mid-flight destruction on October 6, 1976 of a Cuban civilian airliner and the murder of all 73 people on board.
We already knew, by declassified documents published in May, that from at least June 1976 Washington was aware of the plan to carry out this terrible crime, had information about who its authors would be, and knew that the main guilty parties--Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles ? were seeking to escape Venezuelan justice.
But, what is now known via one of the documents published only two days ago, that's the last straw!: the US government itself sought to save the terrorists, with US diplomats in Caracas conspiring to do so with some local officials.
The document is a secret cable sent to Washington by the CIA station chief in Caracas on October 14 1976. The last paragraph refers in detail to the meetings of the morning of October 10, the afternoon of October 12, and again on the morning of October 13, that the US Embassy had with several individuals, including the Director of the DISIP (the Venezuelan secret police), Raúl Giménez Gainza, and Orlando García, advisor to then President Carlos Andrés Pérez.
The object of the meetings was the delivery of Orlando Bosch to the US authorities--without a diplomatic note, without an extradition request. Nothing of this appears in the report. In these three meetings those attending, who were supposedly speaking on behalf of the Venezuelan president, have promised to give up Bosch. It's that simple.
On what source did the CIA base this information? This time it was not an anonymous informant. The person is clearly identified on page 4 and his words reporting the meetings, rightly in quotes, are cited with great care. He is none other than the US ambassador to Venezuela.
His Excellency complains that "I have still not received official confirmation about the President's (Carlos Andrés Pérez) decision."
The George W. Bush regime has spent three months helping Luis Posada Carriles, refusing to extradite him to Venezuela and seeking to shield him with invented chicanery and technicalities.
The father, George H. W. Bush, didn't worry about legal steps or diplomatic procedures ? suffice to plot in the shadows. Then, as now, it was a US-style extradition:
* to try to remove Bosch from Venezuela in October of 1976 and take him to the United States to avoid justice;
*to keep Posada today and not extradite him to Venezuela;
* to prevent justice.
Now, as then, the son like the father is an accomplice and a protector of murderers. This makes them terrorists as well ? and just as guilty as those they shelter.
Ricardo Alarcon Quesada is Cuba's Vice President and President of its National Assembly.
http://www.counterpunch.org/alarcon06142005.html
