Wanted Chávez foes flee to South Florida

Wanted Chávez foes flee to South Florida
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/11311988.htm

South Florida is quietly emerging as a sanctuary for foes of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. U.S. officials said their presence hasn't become a policy issue -- yet.

Johan Peña and Pedro Lander, former Venezuelan security officers, arrived in Miami in early December, only days after investigators in Caracas accused them of killing a prominent federal prosecutor.
Carlos Fernández, former leader of a key Venezuelan opposition business group, arrived in 2003 -- soon after fleeing house arrest, punishment for his role in efforts to overthrow elected President Hugo Chávez.
Daniel Romero, a Caracas lawyer who publicly read a decree suspending the National Assembly and other democratic institutions during a brief 2002 coup, also fled to Miami and asked for asylum.

Immigration court figures show a steady increase in the number of asylum requests by Venezuelans -- from 47 in 2000 to 659 in 2003. Some of the recent arrivals are either wanted for crimes in Venezuela or under investigation for allegedly trying to undermine the Chávez government. Some insist that they face persecution back home in retaliation for their peaceful opposition to Chávez.

The commissioners of City of Miami will be naming streets after these criminals, like they did for Orlando Bosch.

BOMBING SUSPECTS

Colina and Varela arrived Dec. 19, 2003, about a month after a Caracas judge ordered their arrest as suspects in the February 2003 bombings.

Immigration Judge Neale Foster prohibited the U.S. government from deporting Colina and Varela to Venezuela. But he also denied them asylum Feb. 18, saying, ''there are serious reasons for believing'' they had a role in the bombings. The two deny it and are appealing. But the Department of Homeland Security has asked an immigration appeals court to overrule Foster and order the lieutenants' deportation to Venezuela, arguing that they are in the United States to avoid prosecution.

Foster said that the car-bomb assassination of Caracas prosecutor Danilo Anderson in November 2004 was remarkably similar to the bombings of the diplomatic missions. Anderson had developed the case against the ex-lieutenants and also was investigating coup supporters.
(snip)

Neither Peña nor Lander wanted to be quoted for this report. Wilfredo Allen, their immigration attorney, declined to comment.

Peña and Lander have told people in Miami that the charges are false. They claim that the Chávez government wants to frame them because they have evidence linking government officials, including Anderson, to corruption.
(snip/...)

The source sounds dead right when he said they have fled to avoid PROSECUTION not persecution.

(If they had evidence the prosecuting attorney was corrupt, why didn't they get him arrested, rather than slaughtering him? Oh, jeez! Sometimes bombers just don't make too much sense.

a new right-wing Hispanic bloc in South Florida. That's all we need.

If you remember the largest global anti war protests in history prior to the US's illegal invasion of Iraq, almost every major city in the world had massive anti war protests except one.. Miami.

Miami had a massive pro war rally with the radical Miamicuban exiles alongside the anti Chavez Venezuelan exiles (all led by the Diaz Balart brothers and Ileana Ros Lehtinen) marching behind a giant banner that read..

PRESIDENT BUSH - TODAY IRAQ
TOMORROW CUBA AND VENEZUELA


Unfreakingbelievable. :puke:

Miami isn't called vicious for nothing

they already harbor anti-Castro terrorists, don't they?