US court ruling for anti-Castro 'terrorist' denounced by Cuba, Venezuela
Justice Department may appeal district court decision to grant bail for Luis Posada Carriles, accused in a deadly 1976 airline bombing.
Cuba and Venezuela, along with relatives of those killed in anti-Castro attacks, are protesting a US district court ruling that releases from jail Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban exile militant and former CIA operative.
Mr. Posada, who is wanted by authorities in Havana and Caracas for the 1976 bombing of a civilian Cuban airliner, was detained in Florida in May 2005 for entering the United States illegally. Last Friday, US district Judge Kathleen Cardone ruled that Posada, who is currently held in a New Mexico jail, should be freed on bonds totaling $350,000 until his trial, which is scheduled for May 11. The Guardian reports that Posada's release was moved forward after Judge Cardone refused to "reverse her earlier ruling granting his request for bail."
Cuban president Fidel Castro slammed the ruling. In an editorial appearing on the front page of Granma, the official newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party, Mr. Castro labelled Posada a "monster," and accused the White House of interfering with the trial.
It was President Bush himself who at every moment evaded the criminal and terrorist nature of the defendant. He was protected by being charged with a simple violation of immigration paperwork. The response is brutal. The United States government and its most representative institutions decided beforehand on the monster's freedom.
Venezuela also criticized the decision. In an interview with Democracy Now!, a syndicated American radio program, Venezuelan ambassador Bernardo Alvarez Herrera called the ruling an "emblematic figure of the double standard in the fight against terrorism". In his September 20 remarks at the United Nations General Assembly, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez called Posada "biggest terrorist of this continent." Venezuela has asked that Posada be extradited, but a US federal court denied the request, claiming that Posada could be tortured in Venezuela.
In a press conference organized by the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, named for a group of Cubans convicted of spying for Castro in the United States, Livio di Celmo, the brother of an Italian businessman killed in 1997, in a wave of bombings that Posada has admitted to organizing, accused the United States of exercising a double standard.
Luis Posada Carriles is a terrorist and the United States Government has refused to define him so. I think that the American people should know the extent by which there has been ambiguity in the war on terrorism. This is an insult to my brother and to the victims of terrorism and it should be exposed to all.
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