Giving
Passes In The War On Terrorism: CIA Nefarious Activities
05 May 2010By Jacob G.
Hornberger
There is still no trial date set in the federal case
of Luis Posada Carriles, the foreigner whom Venezuela
accuses of having planned the terrorist downing of a
Cuban civilian airliner in 1976 that killed 73
innocent people, including 24 members of Cuba’s
national fencing team.
After Carriles entered the United States in 2005,
Venezuela sought his extradition, pursuant to an
extradition agreement between the United States and
Venezuela.
U.S. officials, however, have refused to grant
Venezuela’s extradition request, which would appear
odd given the U.S. government’s ardent commitment to
waging war on terrorism and, also, given its steadfast
insistence that the Taliban government turn over
accused terrorist Osama bin Laden, notwithstanding the
absence of an extradition agreement between the United
States and Afghanistan.
What is the reason they give for their refusal to
extradite Carriles? They say that Venezuela might
torture him. This is not something, U.S. officials
say, they could countenance, given their steadfast
opposition to torture as part of their war on
terrorism.
But there could be another reason that they are
vigorously fighting to protect Carriles from being
extradited. He just happens to be a former CIA
operative, one who allegedly was involved in the CIA’s
nefarious activities in Cuba as far back as the Bay of
Pigs invasion in the 1960s. The last thing the CIA
would want is for Carriles to be put in a position in
which he might begin singing about the things he did
for his former employer, including, of course, the
possible commission of terrorist acts in Cuba itself.
Cuban officials allege that Carriles was, in fact,
involved in a series of terrorist bombings in Cuba in
1997.
One of the interesting aspects of the federal case in
which Carriles is being prosecuted is that many of the
documents in the case are sealed from public view.
Imagine that! I wonder why they have to be kept
secret. National security, I suppose.
So, what’s the federal case against Carriles all
about? No, it’s not about the terrorist bombing of
that Cuban airliner that he is accused of
orchestrating. Instead, they’ve indicted him for lying
to U.S. officials when he entered the United States.
Now, that doesn’t seem to be an extremely difficult
case to prosecute. Yet, it’s been a year since he’s
been indicted, and there’s still no trial date. Just
recently, the presiding judge in the case, Kathleen
Cardone, granted the government’s unopposed motion to
postpone a status conference in the case from May 20
to June 2. Obviously, a status conference is not a
trial date but rather a hearing to determine whether a
trial date should be set at some point in the future.
The question we have to ask is: Is the Carriles
prosecution nothing more than a sham, one designed to
make it look like the U.S. government is taking action
against an accused terrorist while actually protecting
a loyal operative of the CIA who has the ability to
disclose many uncomfortable and embarrassing secrets?
Indeed, we need to ask whether it’s possible that the
government will end up granting Carriles favorable
treatment out of fear that he might disclose the
things that he did on behalf of the CIA.
My prediction: the 82-year-old Carriles will die
before he ever serves any significant time in jail. If
his perjury case is ever brought to trial and if he is
convicted, my hunch is that he will be given a very
light sentence, especially when the CIA reveals, in
secret communications to the judge, how much Carriles
loyally served the CIA. Appeals will delay the case
even longer, especially if the prosecution commits
procedural errors in the trial that enable Carriles to
win a reversal of the conviction, which would mean
that the prosecution would have to start all over.
After all, look at the special treatment that former
CIA operative Michael Townley received. He is the man
who planned the pre-meditated murder, through a
terrorist bombing in Washington, D.C, of former
Chilean official Orlando Letelier and his young
American assistant Ronni Moffit and the pre-meditated
attempted murder of Moffit’s husband, who was severely
injured in the attack.
Townley ended up serving only 5 years in jail and then
was permitted to enter the Federal Witness Protection
Program, which enabled him to begin a new life in
seclusion. In fact, just recently the Justice
Department came to Townley’s assistance in a case in
which a widow from another terrorist bombing in which
Townley was accused of participating was attempting to
collect a $7 million judgment against him for the
killing. The Justice Department successfully argued in
the Court of Appeals that Townley’s status in its
Witness Protection Program protected him from the
widow’s attempt to collect her judgment.
If they did all that for a CIA-connected terrorist
like Townley, why wouldn’t they also do it for former
CIA operative Luis Posada-Carriles?
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The
Future of Freedom Foundation.
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