[News] Terrorism Case of Luis Posada Debated

[Anti-Imperialist News]

TERRORISM CASE OF LUIS POSADA DEBATED ON CAPITOL HILL
Archive Analyst Peter Kornbluh Shares Declassified CIA and FBI 
Intelligence Reports With House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee

For more information contact:
Peter Kornbluh - 202/994-7116
peter.kornbluh at gmail.com

http://www.nsarchive.org

Washington D.C., November 15, 2007 - In the first Congressional 
hearing held on the controversial case of violent Cuban exile Luis 
Posada Carriles, the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on 
International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight invited 
National Security Archive Senior Analyst Peter Kornbluh to testify on 
formerly top secret CIA and FBI intelligence reports linking Posada 
to the October 6, 1976 bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner. In his 
testimony, Kornbluh argued that the declassified records demonstrated 
that Posada had concrete foreknowledge of the bombing; was in 
possession of a surveillance report on Cuban targets that included 
the doomed plane; received coded messages immediately after the plane 
went into the ocean from the men who placed the bombs; and was 
quickly identified by multiple FBI and CIA sources in Venezuela as 
one of two masterminds of the attack that claimed the lives of all 73 
passengers and crew.

Kornbluh called Posada "one of the most prolific purveyors of 
political violence in recent history" and said that the evidence in 
the plane bombing was "more than sufficient" to have detained Posada 
for acts of international terrorism under the Patriot Act. Former 
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refused to designate Posada as a 
terrorist and a judge dismissed immigration fraud charges against him 
last spring. Posada now lives freely in Miami, as does Orlando Bosch, 
who the CIA and FBI both identify as a co-conspirator in the plane 
bombing. "The United States now finds itself in the frankly 
inexplicable position of having not one but both men who our own 
intelligence agencies identified as responsible for bringing down a 
civilian airliner living free and unfettered lives in Florida," 
Kornbluh told the Committee.

Kornbluh was joined at the hearing by Dr. Roseanne Persaud Nenninger, 
the sister of one of the Guyanese teenagers killed on the plane. In 
her testimony, Dr. Nenninger said she wanted to put a "human face" on 
the victims of the plane bombing by talking about her brother Raymond 
Persaud, a 19-year-old science student on his way to Havana with a 
full scholarship to study medicine. She called on the Subcommittee, 
chaired by Congressman William Delahunt, to investigate fully how the 
Bush administration had allowed Posada to go free, so that her family 
and those of all the other Cuban, Guyanese and Korean passengers 
could finally see justice done for their loved ones. Ann Louise 
Bardach, who interviewed Posada for The New York Times in 1998 on his 
involvement in a string of hotel bombings in Cuba, also testified on 
her extensive research into Posada's many violent activities.

Kornbluh's testimony and the five documents that he reviewed for the 
House Committee were posted today on the Archive's Web site.

http://www.nsarchive.org

________________________________________________________

THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE is an independent non-governmental 
research institute and library located at The George Washington 
University in Washington, D.C. The Archive collects and publishes 
declassified documents acquired through the Freedom of Information 
Act (FOIA). A tax-exempt public charity, the Archive receives no U.S. 
government funding; its budget is supported by publication royalties 
and donations from foundations and individuals.



Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
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