[News] If Julian Assange is a Terrorist, then What is Luis Posada Carriles?

[Anti-Imperialist News]

If Julian Assange is a Terrorist, then What is Luis Posada Carriles?

By Jean Guy Allard - Cubanradio.cu, January 21st 2011
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5949

The trials of the creator of WikiLeaks, Julian 
Assange and of international terrorist Luis 
Posada Carriles began with less than a 24-hour 
difference on January 10 and 11, one in London 
and the other one in El Paso, Texas. The anomaly 
immediately catching the attention of many is 
that the champion of freedom of information will 
be accused of the very serious crime of 
terrorism, while the confessed terrorist will be 
tried for migratory crimes sanctioned by a sentence he has already served.

The ANSA news agency reports that the request of 
extradition made by Sweden for the charge of 
“sexual molestation” against Assange was 
transferred from a court in the center of London 
to Belmarsh Court, specializing in terrorism 
issues and annexed to a maximum security prison, 
rebaptized years ago by the BBC as “The British Guantanamo”.

Assange will appear in court on a charge of 
terrorism, which implies, according to British 
laws, his arrest and confinement.

Luis Posada Carriles will continue to be free on 
bail when he appears in the United States before 
a judge who acquitted him in a first trial and 
who openly expressed her sympathy for him in a 
courtroom full of followers, many of them with a terrorist past.

A spokesperson of the British legal authorities 
stated that the transfer to the court of 
Belmarsh, in the southeast area of the capital, 
is due to “logistical reasons” and not, as stated 
by WikiLeaks, due to US pressure.

SPEED UP FOR ASSANGE, DELAYED FOR POSADA

The truth is that while in the case of Assange, 
the procedures have been speed up, skipping 
stages as much as possible after a series of 
tricks to silence the Australian man, in the case 
of Posada Carriles, a former CIA agent who served 
the Agency as an  instructor of explosives, a 
torturer, a police captain, a hired assassin, a 
terrorist and a promoter of assassination, 
records of dilatory maneuvers to draw out his case are surpassed.

In addition to use a panoply of dirty tricks to 
pressure Assange, sabotage his operations system, 
take away his income, recover the leaks, 
manipulate the content, US agencies have 
terrorized the man who dared to open the valves 
of the huge can of diplomatic trash of the United States.

Hundreds of texts have been written, books have 
been published and documentaries have been made 
about the criminal record of Posada, the Klaus Barbie of US intelligence.

On May 17, 2005, at 1:30 pm, Luis Posada Carriles 
was arrested near Miami, and taken in a golf cart 
to a helicopter, “with every courtesy possible”, 
for his transfer to the offices of the Department of Homeland Security.

On April 1st, 2005, a lawyer for Posada Carriles, 
Eduardo Soto, confirmed in Miami that his client 
- who illegally entered US territory on board a 
shrimp vessel owned by a kingpin of the 
Cuban-American mafia - would ask for asylum to stay in the country permanently.

In spite of the accusations presented in Caracas 
for his participation in the terrorist attack 
against a Cuban aircraft that killed all 73 
people on board in 1976; his arrest in Panama in 
2000, in connection with a plan for an 
assassination attempt against Cuban leader Fidel 
Castro; his public acceptance for having 
organized a terrorist campaign against tourist 
facilities in Havana in 1997; and his close links 
with terrorist networks, Posada Carriles received 
full support from the US government.

On September 27, 2005, an immigration judge in El 
Paso, Texas, William Abbott, following federal 
instructions, used the absurd testimony of an old 
accomplice of Posada and former official of the 
Venezuelan secret police, Joaquin Chaffardet, to 
rule that he could not be deported to Venezuela, 
from where he escaped prison and fled justice in 1985.

GETTING RID OF THE “HOT POTATO”

Four months later, on January 24, 2006, three 
days before the inauguration of Honduran 
President, Manuel Zelaya, The Miami Herald cited 
what it called “fragments” of a statement by the 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau (ICE), 
that pointed out the following: “ICE is 
progressing in carrying out of the removal of Mr. Posada from the US”.

The White House – in the face of an international 
scandal – assessed that the best way to get rid 
of the “hot potato” - the former agent, 
terrorist, torturer and assassin, was to find him 
refuge anywhere outside US territory.

Three days later, on January 27, 2006, US 
ambassador to Honduras, Charles “Charlie” Ford, 
visited Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, on the 
day of his inauguration, to make an insolent request.

“Ambassador Charles Ford came to ask me to grant 
a visa to Posada Carriles”, said Zelaya later.

“It was impossible to give a visa to Luis Posada 
Carriles, since he was questioned for terrorist 
acts. They defend that kind of terrorism, I vouch for that”, he underlined.

On April 19, 2007, Posada Carriles, found not 
guilty by Cardone, was back in Miami not to set 
foot in a detention center ever again.

BROWNFIELD: “POSADA DOESN’T PUT ANYBODY AT RISK”

On March 18, 2008, as a response to statements 
made by Cuba and Venezuela at the United Nations, 
the person in charge of legal affairs in the US 
mission, Caroline Wilson, pointed out with candor 
that her country “had carefully followed the 
legal procedures in force in the case of Posada Carriles”.

“As happens in democracies in the world, a person 
can’t be tried or extradited if there isn’t 
enough evidence that he committed the crime he’s accused of”, she asserted.

In July 2008, US ambassador to Venezuela at the 
time, William Brownfield, in statements to the 
Panorama newspaper, in Maracaibo, made it clear 
that the United States had no intention 
whatsoever of putting Posada at the disposal of 
Venezuelan justice, which was claiming and continues to claim him.

“Mr. Luis Posada Carriles doesn’t represent an 
imminent danger for anybody”, Brownfield said, 
making it clear that the US would never turn over its veteran agent.

Ironically, a few days before the Brownfield 
blunder, Sub-Secretary of State Thomas Shannon, 
today US ambassador in Brazil, assured the OAS 
that the US Department of Justice was “still 
carrying out investigations” about Posada Carriles.

While Assange is hastily taken from a minor court 
to another one that can lock him up for good, the 
Venezuelan government is waiting for an answer, 
for more than five years now, to its extradition 
request for terrorist Posada Carriles.

Assange, the Web idealist demonized by major 
communication networks and persecuted by US 
agencies, will soon know how imperial justice 
gives a piece of its mind, with or without intermediaries.

Ignored by an accomplice press, Posada, the 
mercenary assassin, will keep on evading laws and 
haunting the dozens of victims and relatives of 
victims of his crimes, who have been devastated 
by the permanent despicable and cowardly 
willingness of those serving the empire.




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