Cuba Cooperating in US Case Against Ex-CIA Agent

Source: Associated Press

Cuba Cooperating in US Case Against Ex-CIA Agent
Cuban government cooperating with US in immigration case against former CIA operative Posada
By WILL WEISSERT Associated Press
EL PASO, Texas February 8, 2011 (AP)

Three officials from Cuba are expected to testify in the U.S. trial of a former CIA operative and anti-communist militant accused of lying during immigration hearings in Texas — a rare example of cooperation between two governments paralyzed by more than a half century of frigid relations.

Two police officers and a state medical examiner from Cuba could begin testifying as early as Tuesday in the U.S. government's perjury case against Luis Posada Carriles. The 82-year-old native of Cuba spent a lifetime using violence to destabilize communist political systems throughout Latin America before seeking U.S citizenship in 2005.

Posada is not on trial for his Cold War past, however. Instead, U.S. prosecutors allege that during immigration hearings in El Paso, Posada made false statements about how he reached American soil in March 2005 and failed to acknowledge planning a series of 1997 bombings in Havana that killed an Italian tourist. Posada faces 11 counts of perjury, obstruction and immigration fraud.

Neither side in Posada's trial has released a witness list, but both the prosecution and the defense said privately Monday evening that they expect Cuban experts to begin testifying this week, perhaps as early as Tuesday. They have divulged the names of the three witnesses, but only on the condition they not be published until they take the stand.


Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=12863821

Source: Associated Press

US never searched key yacht in ex-CIA agent's case
By Will Weissert
Associated Press / February 8, 2011

EL PASO, Texas—U.S. authorities never searched the yacht they say carried an ex-CIA agent illegally from Mexico to Miami in 2005, and they have no photographs or other physical evidence that he was ever aboard, a federal investigator acknowledged Monday.

Steven Ussher, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement special criminal investor, told a West Texas jury he was in charge of the case against anti-communist militant Luis Posada Carriles beginning in April 2006. He said investigators never thought to obtain a search warrant so the vessel in question, a converted shrimper called "The Santrina," could undergo forensic analysis.

Posada, 82, is accused of lying under oath to federal officials during immigration hearings in El Paso and faces 11 counts of perjury, obstruction and immigration fraud. He said under oath that he paid a people smuggler to drive him from Central America over the Texas border and then to Houston. Prosecutors say he actually sailed aboard the Santrina from the Mexican resort of Isla Mujeres to Miami, where he slipped ashore at a waterfront restaurant in March 2005.

While little known in most of the U.S., Posada is considered a hero among some Cuban-American exiles and is public enemy No. 1 in his native Cuba, where he is viewed as former President Fidel Castro's personal nemesis.

Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2011/02/08/us_never_searched_key_yacht_in_ex_cia_agents_case/