The Posada Trial Takes a Historic Turn

The Posada Trial Takes a Historic Turn
Peter Kornbluh
February 9, 2011

February 9—In El Paso, Texas, the perjury trial of the infamous violent Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles took a historic turn today. For the first time in a long dramatic history dominated by hostility and aggression, US government prosecutors formally presented evidence of terrorism committed against Cuba in a court of law—against one of its own former CIA operatives. Even more extraordinary, the evidence comes in the form of a Cuban Ministry of Interior investigator explaining photographs and police reports to the jury relating to a series of explosions in Havana hotels, including the Hotel Copacabana which killed a young Italian businessman Fabio Di Celmo on September 4, 1997. “Cuba Cooperating in US case against ex-CIA agent,” reads tomorrow’s news headlines.

The godfather of anti-Castro Cuban violence over the last four decades, Posada is being prosecuted for immigration fraud relating to how he illegally entered the United States in March 2005. But the Obama Justice Department added three counts of perjury relating to a far more important crime: Posada’s role in a series of seven bombings that rocked Havana hotels and other tourist sites between April and September 1997. “The defendant is alleged to have lied about his involvement in planning the bombings in Havana,” state court filings by the Justice Department’s Counterterrorism Division. “The United States intends to prove that the bombings in Cuba actually occurred.”

This week marks the first time that concrete evidence is being presented to the jury on how those bombings took place and the damage they wrought. The jury has been shown photographs taken by Cuban authorities of the bloodstained floor of the hotel. Portions of a Cuban investigative study, known as the “Volcan report,” which discusses the cause of, and circumstances surrounding Fabio Di Celmo’s death, are due to be introduced as evidence during the testimony of Major Roberto Hernandez Caballero—he was Cuba’s lead detective on the hotel bombing investigation—who took the stand today.

The importance of this moment in US-Cuban relations cannot be overstated. Posada was originally trained in demolitions by the US military and put on the CIA payroll in 1965 to train and supervise other exile groups in sabotage, explosives and violent operations. Declassified CIA and FBI intelligence reports, posted on the website of the National Security Archive, identify him as a mastermind of a mid-air bombing of a Cuban jetliner that took the lives of all 73 men, women and children on board in October 1976. Most recently, Posada was arrested in Panama with a carload of C-4 and dynamite in what he admitted to U.S. officials was a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro at the Ibero-American summit in November 2000. By prosecuting him on charges related to his acts of terrorism, even if they are only perjury charges, the United States is effectively repudiating a dark past that its own Cold War officials and covert operatives set in motion.

More:
http://www.thenation.com/article/158439/posada-trial-takes-historic-turn

Defense strategy is to stall, delay, lie, disrupt, file motions, object to everything. At this rate Posada C. just might die of old age, which would be a big relief for the CIA, Hil, Obama. !!!

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EL PASO, Texas -- – The Luis Posada Carriles trial ground to an abrupt halt Thursday when the attorney for the Cuban exile militant made a motion for mistrial accusing a Cuban government witness now on the stand of lying about his background, and the prosecution of delaying delivery of relevant documents to thwart the defense.

As a result, presiding U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone suspended the trial until Tuesday – sending the jury home just one day after the Cuban government witness, state security Lt. Col. Roberto Hernandez Caballero, began testifying.

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The delay in the trial is the latest bump in the road for a case that has been fraught since the start Jan. 10 by disruptions and unusual emotional outbursts in the courtroom. The case was delayed for one day Tuesday when attorney Hernandez first made an attempt to delay or cancel the testimony of at least two Cuban government witnesses lined up by the prosecution.

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Okay, it's the Herald. But Alfonso Chardy at least gets the details correct. (I forgive him for calling Posada a "Cuban exile militant" because if he called him a "Cuban exile terrorist" Chardy would be in deep doo-doo when he returned to "el exilio" in South Florida.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/10/2060339/mistrial-motion-leads-to-new.html#