Narconews: Day One of Posada Carriles Hearing

Bill Weaver and Irasema Coronado report in from day one of Luis Posada Carriles' immigration hearing today. Posada Carriles, a longtime Cuban exile activist, CIA asset, and accused terrorist seeks political asylum in the United States. The Venezuelan government seeks his extradition for his role in planning the 1976 bombing of a Cubana de Aviacion passenger plane, killing 73 people (including some Venezuelan citizens).

As Weaver and Coronado report, Posada Carriles successfully argued on Monday that his extradition to Cuba itself would violate the Convention Against Torture (CAT):

"The CAT treaty, among other things, prohibits the extradition or return, or 'refouler,' of people to countries where it is more likely than not that the extradited person will be subjected to torture. Ratified by the United States in 1994, and supported with enabling statutes, the Bush Administration, through Garrett-Jackson, was only too glad to publicly imply that Posada's extradition to Cuba would result in his torture. This is the same Administration that kidnapped Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, from New York and flew him manacled and gagged to the Middle East to be delivered to the Syrian government for months of torture. Justified in these acts by an assertion that Arar was an associate of known members of al Qaeda, it nonetheless turned out that Arar had no association whatsoever with terrorists. In similar disregard for law, Bush has sent suspected terrorists to Uzbekistan, where torture of prisoners is commonplace, and interrogators sometimes boil their captives to death. The Bush Administration has carried out dozens of these 'extraordinary renditions,' the kidnapping and delivery for torture of persons to third countries, and seems little concerned about the CAT on those occasions. In this case, however, a known terrorist who has engaged in numerous violent and deadly acts against civilian targets is nevertheless afforded meticulous protection under the CAT, protection that Maher Arar, who was no terrorist at all, was denied."

Posada Carriles may have a harder time avoiding extradition to Cuba, as the immigration judge has already signaled his willingness to deport Posada to that country if the asylum request is denied. But, write Weaver and Coronado, "there is little chance that Bush will send Posada into the hands of the very kinds of people he and his family revile and have fought against for decades; Posada is their employee, their spirit, their friend."

Read the full report, here:

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/8/29/234855/616

And stay tuned to Narco News for continuing coverage of this story:

http://www.narconews.com

From somewhere in a country called América,

Dan Feder
Managing Editor
The Narco News Bulletin
http://www.narconews.com

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