POSADA's indictment: Transcript 4/9 Press Conf.-Presentations /Q & A, with Pertierra & Di Celmo

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POSADA's indictment: Transcript 4/9 Press Conf.-Presentations /Q & A, with Pertierra & Di Celmo

There's alot of info here. Karen Lee Wald, keeper of the Cuba Inside-Out List, refers to an article by Pertierra in her note in parentheses below, "Gesture for Gesture," which I circulated to our list. Here's the URL for it at Counterpunch: http://www.counterpunch.org/pertierra03272009.html

You can listen to the presentations and Q&A at the Free the Five website -www.freethefive.org (direct URLs for these appear below)

TOPIC: Transcript of Press Conference presentations and Q and A regarding
Posada and the new indictment
http://groups.google.com/group/Cuba-Inside-Out/t/0f804c5421e0f192?hl=en
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== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Fri, Apr 10 2009 4:44 pm
From: "Karen Lee Wald"

Telephone Press Conference on the indictment of Luis Posada Carriles for lying about his role in the murder of Fabio di Celmo
Apr. 9, 2009
Exclusive to www.freethefive.org

For the first time, Luis Posada Carriles has been indicted by the U.S. government in conjunction with the 1997 hotel and tourist site bombings in Cuba which killed Italian tourist Fabio di Celmo (pictured) and wounded many others.

Speakers at Press Conference:
Jos� Pertierra, Attorney for Venezuela in the extradition matter of Luis Posada Carriles
Livio di Celmo, Brother of Fabio di Celmo
Andr�s G�mez, leader of the Alianza Martiana, coalition of Cuban-American organizations in Miami; editor, Areitodigital
Brian Becker, National Director, A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), which has conducted a national campaign to extradite Posada since 2005
Gloria La Riva, Coordinator, National Committee to Free the Cuban Five
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, attorney and founder, Partnership for Civil Justice Fund

Listen to the presentations of the speakers at the Press Conference at: http://www.freethefive.org/multimedia/audio/PosadaPressConfSpeakers40909.mp3

Listen to the Questions from the Press and the Answers from the Speakers: http://www.freethefive.org/multimedia/audio/PosadaPressConfSpeakers40909.mp3

Partial and preliminary transcript (in progress):
Gloria La Riva, moderator:
Good afternoon to the members of the press who are here for the press conference and also to the speakers who are participating. We are holding this in response to the federal indictment that came down yesterday against Luis Posada Carriles for lying about his role in the bombing murder of Fabio di Celmo. We will first hear comments from our speakers and then have questions and answers. My name is Gloria La Riva, I�m coordinator of the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, which has been working with people around the world for the freedom of the five men who were monitoring the actions of terrorists like Luis Posada Carriles and we�re, of course, always calling for the freedom of the Cuban Five and the serious prosecution of Posada Carriles and the other terrorists in Miami.
We will hear from Jos� Pertierra, the attorney for Venezuela in the extradition matter of Luis Posada Carriles. Then we will hear from Livio di Celmo, the brother of Fabio di Celmo, who was killed in the hotel bombing in 1997 by actions of Posada Carriles. We�ll hear from Andr�s G�mez, the leader of the Alianza Martiana, a of Cuban-American organizations in Miami and editor of Areitodigital, Brian Becker, the National Director of A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, which has conducted a national campaign to demand Posada�s extradition to Venezuela, myself, and then Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, attorney and founder of Partnership for Civil Justice.
We will now hear from Jos� Pertierra.
Jos� Pertierra:
Good afternoon. Venezuela considers this a positive first step on the part of the Obama administration to bring justice in the matter of Luis Posada Carriles, because it is the first time that the prosecutors of the United States have formally related Posada to international terrorism. Even though the charges against him are based basically on falsehoods given by Posada Carriles, and not on the acts of terrorism themselves, nonetheless they show a level of seriousness that the previous administration, the Bush administration, never showed in the case of Posada. He is accused of lying to an immigration judge in relation to whether he knew or helped or aided a terrorist by the name of Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon, who has been <...> convicted in Cuba and sentenced in Cuba for terrorism and for the murder of Fabio di Celmo. He is also accused of denying that he had any links with international terrorism or that he helped and aided terrorists.
This is a positive step, and we think that it has implications that the government needs to take further steps. In particular, Posada Carriles benefited greatly from his perjury. He perjured himself in front of an immigration judge in 2005. He lied to this judge about his involvement with international terrorism, and he presented a witness to help him in his perjury, a man by the name of Joaquin Chaffardet, and neither the prosecutor at that time, the Bush administration prosecutor, nor Posada, informed the judge that Chaffardet was an extremely biased witness because he had been Posada�s lawyer in Venezuela, he had been the person that had directed Posada within the Venezuelan secret service agency back in the 70�s, and was a business partner of Posada. Those lies, told by Posada and aided by Chaffardet, helped Judge Abbott give a blind decision, because he didn�t know the facts, and he gave a blind decision protecting Posada under the Convention Against Torture, and prohibiting his deportation--note: not his extradition but his deportation,-- to Venezuela, because he would be allegedly tortured there. I think one of the consequences of this action by the prosecutors yesterday is to revisit now the decision of Judge William Abbott from September of 2005 and to re-open that case once again, because it based on mendacity.
Another thing that needs to be kept in mind, and that prosecutors needs to follow up on, is the investigation in New Jersey, that has been going on for quite some time, a Grand Jury that was convened in New Jersey to examine Posada Carriles� role in the campaign of bombs in Havana in 1997 and the murder of Fabio di Celmo. This indictment for lying about his involvement in these things should give rise to another indictment in New Jersey for murder in relation to that. And also I should like to emphasize that, even though we are gratified about this step that the prosecutors are taking, the Government of Venezuela insists that the United States should follow up on our request for extradition, which is still pending before the U.S. government, and actually extradite Posada Carriles to Venezuela for the murder of 73 persons aboard that Cubana de Aviaci�n flight back in 1976. There are international conventions such as the Montreal Convention, there is also the treaty of extradition that obligates the United States to return him to Venezuela.
The next step in the indictment that was presented in El Paso yesterday is that Posada Carriles has to present himself, or at least answer, the charges against him, ironically enough on April 17. April 17 is an ironic date because that is the anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion, and Posada Carriles has always fancied that he is a veteran of that invasion, a veteran of Brigada 2506. It is ironic because he may be facing a legal Bay of Pigs on the anniversary of his failed attempt to invade Cuba back in 1961.
La Riva:
Thank you very much Jos�. We will now hear from Livio di Celmo, the brother of Fabio di Celmo, who was killed in the hotel bombing on Sept. 4, 1997.
Livio di Celmo:
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being there. My family and I have been waiting 12 years since 1997 for the U.S. government to officially link Posada Carriles to international terrorism. I have done my research since my brother�s death, and I found out that there was plenty of evidence that the U.S. government had in their hands, had they wanted to get justice for my brother, but they never did anything. The evidence is available in the special report of 1999 by a U.N. Commissioner who went to Cuba to investigate whether that happened, and also there are some declassified files from Peter Kornbluh, I believe. I am not the only one that has lost a family member here in North America because of Posada, there is somebody else, and her name is Rosanne Dellinger, and she lives in the New Jersey area. She is the sister of the one of the Cubana Airliners victims, and I�m going to call her later on to see if she heard about the news.
My family and I have always sought to obtain justice for my brother. In the month of February I sent an open letter to Attorney-General Eric Holder to explain my frustrations about the fact that Posada Carriles had never been recognized as a terrorist by the U.S. government, and I further sent a few weeks ago a letter to legal associations in the United States and elsewhere to seek their assistance in helping me launch an Alien Tort Act lawsuit against Posada Carriles and his associates.
I believe that it�s not only Posada Carriles that is responsible for the murder of my brother and for the bombings of 1997, but there was, there must have been, there is for sure a lot of other people involved that should be investigated and prosecuted as well. So my family and I will never give up on the hope of obtaining justice, and we will in any possible way try to obtain it. Also in view of the fact of the five Cubans that are in jail in the United States for having infiltrated these terrorist organizations, they are the ones that could testify very well about the terrorist acts that have been going on against Cuba since 1959. It�s about time now that something is being done, and I hope that the new administration is going to be taking care of that.
La Riva:
Thanks you very much Livio. We will hear now from Andr�s G�mez from Miami, a leader of the Alianza Martiana.
Andr�s G�mez:
Good afternoon to you all. I want to thank the members of the press for being at this conference today. Here in Miami, of course, for decades we have suffered the consequences of terrorist activities, not only directed against the Cuban people on the island but directed against others in the United States and Puerto Rico that have opposed these terrorists� methods and objectives. We have asked for many years the United States government to process, to take into justice, these individuals that they know fully well have committed terrorist acts against others in foreign lands and here in the United States, and nothing has been done. We are extremely concerned because many terrorists are our neighbors, and they acted here violently in the past, and they will act violently in the future. It is their nature. Posada Carriles is not the only one. There is Orlando Bosch. There is Guillermo Novo. There is Santiago Alvarez. There is Pedro Ram�n. There is Osvaldo Mitat. And many others. Many others. That need to be charged by the United States government for committing acts of terrorism here at home and abroad.
La Riva:
Thank you Andr�s. We will hear now from Brian Becker, National Director of A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism)
Brian Becker:
Thank you very much. The ANSWER Coalition, starting in April 2005, began a campaign calling for the U.S. government to arrest and extradite Posada. That campaign began just weeks after Posada came into the country illegally in March, 2005. At that time the Bush administration pretended that Posada was not even in the country, but within a few weeks, we managed to send more than 60,000 letters to the Bush administration and to elected members of Congress from people of conscience around the country, people who oppose the ongoing terrorist activities against Cuba, demanding that Posada be arrested, that he be extradited to Venezuela to stand trial for the bombing of Cubana Airlines that took place on Oct. 6, 1976.
Even as late as mid-May 2005, the position of Richard Noriega from the State Department representing the Bush administration was that they were still uncertain as to whether Posada was even in the country. That was a laughable claim, given the fact that Posada had requested asylum, something that would have required that he be present on U.S. soil. We had another press conference on May 13, 2005 where we announced that we had now collected 75,000 letters that were sent to the Bush administration and to Congress demanding his extradition. This grassroots activity, that took place not only in the United States but around the world, culminated with another very visible event, the demonstration of more than a million Cubans in Havana on May 17, 2005, and it was at that time that the New York Times, the Washington Post, the L.A. Times, and other mainstream media in the United States ran major stories and editorials about the presence of Posada. Later, he was arrested, but on spurious, minor charges, that of lying to an immigration officer, rather than the grand crime, the crimes against humanity, as evidenced by his terrorist activities.
We consider the new indictment to be a positive step, but not one that goes far enough, and we will undertake a new advocacy campaign, asking the people of the United States to let the Obama administration and members of Congress know that real justice requires that Posada be indicted not only for lying about terrorism, or his association with terrorists, but for engaging in terrorist activities including during the time that he was an operative for the Central Intelligence Agency. This campaign will begin sometime in the next few days.
La Riva:
Thank you Brian. We will now hear from Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, attorney and founder, Partnership for Civil Justice.
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard:
Good afternoon. Last year, the Partnership for Civil Justice filed a Freedom of Information Act on behalf of the ANSWER Coalition and the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five to force the government to disclose the records, documentation, payments, fund transfers, and other related material from the transfer of money from known terrorist networks and terrorists in the United States to those who would seek to carry out illegal and terrorist activities in Cuba. It was reported last year that Cuban citizens had received financial aid from Santiago Alvarez through the U.S. Interests Section Chief Michael Parmly, acting as an emissary for the transactions. We demanded this information, we have continued to press for the information from the government. The government has been withholding the information, and we are now preparing legal action to force this information to be revealed. We believe that it is critical, that it�s time to end the secrecy of these terrorist networks, and the protection and the support that they receive from the U.S. government. There is an enormous danger posed by these terrorist entities and organizations operating with a foothold in the United States, having previously committed, and seeking to commit, enormous acts of violence against the people of Cuba. We think the people of the United States and the people of the world are entitled to know and to have exposed these activities and the direct role of the U.S. government in transferring funds for support of these activities.
Gloria La Riva:
Thank you Mara. My name is Gloria La Riva, from the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five. When Luis Posada Carriles arrived in late March in 2005, he received special kid-glove treatment, and the fact that he felt complete impunity in arriving in the United States, despite his long bloody history as a terrorist, indicated that he thought he could get that special treatment. It is a welcome development to see this indictment, however, his arrival to the U.S. and the treatment that he received exposed also the hypocrisy of the U.S. government in having imprisoned, arrested, and tried in Miami, the one city where they could not receive justice, the Cuban Five, the five men who were in Miami monitoring the actions, to prevent the terrorists from being able to attack Cuba or anyone related to Cuba, including saving the lives of American and Cuban citizens.
So the Cuban Five have been in prison since Sept. 1998. Their case is currently before the Supreme Court. There is worldwide support for them, including 12 amicus briefs that have been filed to the Supreme Court, requesting a new trial. But of course we demand their immediate freedom so they can return to Cuba, because these men, the Cuban Five, were saving lives and preventing the acts of terrorists like Luis Posada Carriles. We will be having a continuous presence in El Paso. From the day that he landed there, the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, the ANSWER Coalition, and many other organizations in the Southwest have had protests during his hearings , and we will have an active presence there as the trial proceedings continue.
QUESTION AND ANSWER SECTION
Carol Williams, Los Angeles Times:
My question is for Gloria, do you sense any moves on the new administration�s part to revisit the idea of sending the Cuban Five to Cuba as some sort of gesture of reconciliation or any review of their sentences for severity?
La Riva :
Yes as the speakers have indicated, especially Jose Pertierra in his comments, the Bush administration was extremely hostile and aggressive in the prosecution of the Five. In 2005 the Five had all their convictions overturned by the first step in the federal appeals court and then the Bush administration pursued an appeal and the convictions were reinstated. Now we see a new administration. There has been a lot of discussion about Cuba, there�s been a lot in the news, the Congressional Black Caucus has just come back from Cuba, the worldwide call for the freedom of the Five and the ending of the blockade. We are hopeful that there will be a serious consideration by the government to have some sort of gesture now.
Jose Pertierra has an article on our web site called Gesture for Gesture, in Spanish and English , I�d like him to talk more about that, about the historic precedent that was set in a previous exchange that was not openly an exchange. We are hopeful that something similar can happen. However we do have an excellent legal team that has filed the brief requesting that the Supreme Court accept the case for a hearing. Yet, we are trying all avenues to see them free. There�s not a single day they should be in prison. Jose, can you speak about the article you wrote recently?
Pertierra:
Carol, there is historical precedent for an exchange of prisoners between Cuba and the United States, based not on a straight-up direct exchange, but something that back in 1978 Fidel Castro referred to as a gesture without any linkage, just a unilateral humanitarian gesture. You can find these documents because they have been declassified, and they�re out there. What I just quoted from Fidel Castro comes from
Carol Williams:
The prisoner release that Bernardo negotiated?
Pertierra:
No I don�t think that's anything to do with Bernardo Benes. What happened was there were four Puerto Rican independence fighters in the United States in prison, including the famous Lolita Lebron, who had been in jail for 24 years, and in Cuba there were four individuals that the U.S. was interested in, all of them U.S. citizens, some of them directly linked to the Central Intelligence Agency. Fidel, beginning in 1975, started to make overtures about a possible exchange without any linkage, what he called gesture for gesture. That the U.S. would release the Puerto Ricans and after a particular interval of time, Cuba would release the Americans. There was initial opposition to that in the Carter administration, particularly from Secretary Brzezinski, who as you recall at the time was heading the National Security Council. Peter Tarnoff and Robert Pastor were involved, and if you trace these documents, you see they were able to convince Brzezinski that everybody had something to gain by this mutual release of prisoners, that the United States was being hammered at in international fora about the fact that they kept these Puerto Ricans in prison, and it would be good to get rid of that as a tool of propaganda of the opposition. It was harming the Carter human rights policy internationally. Also, the United States had a certain interest in getting these U.S. citizens back on U.S. soil.
Now the situation is very similar. You have a situation where you have a new Democratic administration like the Carter administration that has been making noises about normalization of relations with Cuba. There is a situation where we have five Cubans who have been in prison for over 10 years, who did not commit any violent acts, in contrast to the Puerto Ricans who as you recall did commit violent acts, they shot up the Congress and Blair house. But nonetheless, the U.S. released them in 1979 and 10 days later they got their four U.S. citizens back. The U.S. has expressed an interest in certain prisoners who are in Cuba, prisoners who, every time anyone asks the Obama administration or even President Obama about normalization of relations they always say that a necessary condition for normalization of relations would be for Cuba to release their political prisoners. And to Cuba the political prisoners are the Five, to the U.S. the political prisoners are the men and women who are in prison in Cuba. I think history is a guide. It can tell us that if this happened before back in 1979 and it was successful, then these prisoners can released in Cuba and also released mutually in the United States and the two countries can begin once again to talk.
G�mez:
Carol, regarding your question. I think this question of giving freedom to the Five, it�s extremely important to the Cuban government and to the Cuban people, as it was stated publically by President Fidel Castro in Brazil last December. The imprisonment of the Five by the U.S. government is deeper than just the Five, as you know. It is the involvement of the U.S. government since the early 1960s in a campaign of state terrorism against the Cuban people. I think that if the U.S. government, the present U.S. administration is serious about normalizing relations with Cuba, one of the first things it has to do is to renounce the use of violence, the use of terrorism as a means to achieve the destruction of the Cuban revolution. And one way to do that is first to release the Five and second to bring to justice all those involved in terrorist activities against the Cuban people and others here in the United States of the right-wing Cuban community in Miami.
David Brooks, La Jornada:
Thank you this is just a quick question for anybody, especially Jose Pertierra. Are there any concrete indications from the new administration that they are willing, this seems like an implicit recognition that there is a shift in the position of the government. But are there any other indications that you might point out, that the government is now ready to pursue the Posada Carriles case on the issue of his involvement with international terrorism.
Pertierra:
This I think is the first step, the first indication that we have of how the Obama administration is looking at the Posada case. It is a wonderful first step, but it is only a first step, it is the first time they link him to international terrorism, and because of that it is significant.
But as I said before, there are consequences to that, you don�t simply say that he lied and hide the fact that he was involved in international terrorism and hide the fact that he hired the Salvadoran assassins to go to Cuba to kill Fabio di Celmo. You have to follow up with that and the follow up means that they have to indict Posada Carriles for the murder of Fabio di Celmo. They have to either extradite him to Venezuela or prosecute him in the United States for 73 counts of first-degree murder in relation to the downing of the plane. These are concrete steps that have to be taken. I notice that April 17 is not simply the anniversary of the Bay of Pigs but is the first day of the Summit of the Americas and I would suspect that the Obama administration has been thinking ahead of how its going to present itself to the world, and to Latin America on April 17 with relation to the American war on terror, the so-called war on terror. Here the United States is sheltering an international terrorist. So we welcome this as a first step, but Venezuela insists he must be extradited and he must be prosecuted for murder and not simply for perjury.
Back to Carol�s question about the possible exchange of political prisoners between the countries, the language of those documents that have been declassified is very revealing. It shows that the United States was interested for its own political reasons in releasing these folks, and these reasons are still applicable today in the case of the five. You notice Brzezinski speaking in a memo back in 1979, he said that commuting the sentences of the Puerto Ricans would be welcomed as a compassionate and humanitarian gesture and their release would remove from the agenda of the United Nations, the non-aligned movement and other international fora, a propaganda issue which is used each year to criticize the U.S. and is increasingly used as an example of the inconsistency of our human rights policy. And Robert Pastor, also of the Carter administration, makes a similar point. He says, �I�ve come to believe,� this is after he has done a cost-benefit analysis of releasing these guys, he says, �I�ve come to believe that the risks of releasing the Puerto Rican nationalists unconditionally are minimal while the benefits as a compassionate, humanitarian gesture are considerable.� And I think this is the key. You can�t condition the release of prisoners, you can�t have it be a quid pro quo. The way it worked in 1979 was the United States unconditionally and for humanitarian reasons released the Puerto Ricans and then 10 days later the Cubans released the Americans.
Lena, Radio Havana in Cuba:
Thank you all for this opportunity and for your excellent presentation. My question is addressed specifically to lawyer Jose Pertierra. How does this new move by Washington affect the extradition request made by Venezuela to try Posada in that South American nation for what he really is, a notorious terrorist? And does this new development change in any way the express intention of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez to raise the Posada Carriles issue in the upcoming Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.
Pertierra:
Well this is a very good question, the indictment in El Paso does not touch on the issue of the extradition of Posada Carriles and Venezuela continues to insist that he ought to be extradited to stand trial for 73 counts of first degree murder in Caracas or be prosecuted in the United States for those 73 counts of first-degree murder. He is only being charged with perjury and false declarations. He�s not being charged with murder or any acts that he may have committed that were terrorist in nature. He obstructed justice, says the prosecutor, by failing to disclose what he knew. What we know is that he received money from terrorists in the United States. With that money he hired a number of terrorists in Central America and he sent them to Cuba with explosives. Those explosives blew up some of the finest hotels and restaurants in Cuba, terrorizing the population, terrorizing the tourist industry, but also killing in cold blood Fabio di Celmo, Livio�s brother, Livio, who is on this call with us. And Venezuela insists not only that U.S. extradite Posada but also that it bring an indictment in New Jersey against Posada for the murder of Fabio di Celmo and for terrorism. It is a good first step but it ought not be considered a final step or even as a second step. President Chavez in Trinidad on the 17th will continue to insist as he has done from the beginning that this terrorist be brought to justice for murder and not simply for lying.
Carol Williams, Los Angeles Times:
I just wanted to know whether Andres has experienced any changes in the Cuban exile community since the Obama administration took office. Is there any more willingness to accept that the relationship is going to change between Washington and Havana.
G�mez:
For years the Cuban American community in Miami has changed in respect to this question. It has changed because demographically the Cuban-American community of Miami has changed significantly from what it was 20 years ago, 15 years ago. The arrivals of thousands of legal Cuban immigrants into the United States and residing here in Miami has changed that, because the vast majority of them would like to se the possibility of normal relations with their families and with Cuban society in general. The fact that the supplementary budget bill was passed in the Congress with the amendments added by Congressman Jose Serrano, that obligated the Treasury Department to implement the old restrictions before 2004 and leave the 2004 restrictions completely void, is a sign from the Obama administration. It is a way of fulfilling his commitment made during the election campaign, of lifting all travel restrictions to Cuban Americans to be able to travel to Cuba. But of course that is not enough for Cuban Americans. We are demanding as well the lifting of all travel restrictions to all Americans, to be able to fulfill their rights to travel anywhere, including to Cuba. The change is obvious in the Cuban American community in many respects, not only in respect to travel but in respect to the possibility of the ending of the embargo and the normalization of the relations between both the U.S. and Cuba.
Tom Brown, Reuters:
I have two questions, one for Mr. di Celmo and another for Mr. Pertierra. Mr. Di Celmo, I was just wondering if you ever got any response at all from Eric Holder to your letters that you said you sent him?
di Celmo :
No I have not received any answer back. My father even sent in the previous administration, to, I believe his name was Gonzales, a few years ago our family sent a letter to the Attorney General at that time and we never got a reply.
Reuters:
Thank you very much. And for Jose, if you could fill us in on the background of your affiliation with the government of Venezuela. How long have you been representing them and are you in direct contact with the president�s office regarding what he might have to say in Trinidad or are you just speaking from your knowledge of the news such as it is.
Pertierra:
I have been representing the government of Venezuela in the extradition case of Luis Posada Carriles since early June of 2005. I was involved in the preparation of the request for extradition and I have been representing the government ever since. I speak on a constant basis with the Foreign Minister and the Foreign Minister�s office as well as the Attorney General of Venezuela, concerning this case. This morning I spoke to the Foreign Minister of Venezuela about this case. He is traveling, he was not in Caracas; I spoke to him by cell phone. You know I can tell you that the case of Posada Carriles is a case that will be a case that will be dealt with. To sum it up, the government of Venezuela makes it a top priority in its dealing with the United States because it involves not just a political question but a legal question. There are legal obligations on the part of the United States to honor international conventions and treaties. There is a treaty between the United States and Venezuela, dating all the way back to 1922 that obligates the United States to extradite Posada for the murders. There is also an international convention signed by the United States and signed by Venezuela. It�s called the Montr�al Convention, and it deals with the protection of civilians in passenger airlines that are subject to terrorism. That convention obligates the United States to extradite Mr. Posada or prosecute him for those 73 counts of first-degree murder. President Chavez and Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro have been very adamant about this topic since Posada Carriles arrived in The United States. That is not gong to change because of this indictment. President Chavez has declared publicly already that he is prepared to raise this issue in Trinidad and I have no indication that he is going to do otherwise.
Reuters:
How actually do you say this is a positive step by the administration when its really is a grand jury down in El Paso and not the administration itself that is doing all this?
Pertierra:
Well, as you know, whether or not to bring an indictment depends on the prosecutor, The prosecutor works for the Department of Justice, headed by Eric Holder. This is the executive branch of the United States government. We think that no indictments like this were brought previously by the Bush administration for political reasons. I think legally and in terms of evidence, if an indictment should be brought, the immigration case that arose in 2005 should be re-opened, the decision of Judge Abbott should be annulled and that would expose Posada Carriles not only to extradition to Venezuela but to deportation to Venezuela.
It is a crime that the immigration judge was blinded by false testimony and by the collusion of the prosecutors at that time and important information was withheld from this judge. That was the only reason he found for Posada on the issue of the Convention Against Torture relief, finding preposterously that he could be tortured or that there was a clear probability that he would be tortured if returned to Venezuela. Venezuela has always contested that. We have always maintained that that was a circus and a sham, and I think that this indictment shows that we were right. And we�re glad that the United States government is taking this step and we are asking for more. We ask for consequential steps that have to do with the major premise of this indictment.
La Riva:
We want to let the press know we will issue information on any new developments. All the information, historical information since Posada�s arrival as well as the case of the Cuban Five are on the website: freethefive.org. We will also have the government motions and legal documents that have just been issued. It was by the worldwide pressure and the pressure in Cuba and in the United States that the struggle to extradite Posada to Venezuela and get justice for all his victims is still alive, very much alive. We will be in El Paso to follow the hearing and with protests as well.

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