FBI probing Posada's alleged links to Havana bombing
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| Published on Friday, May 4, 2007 |
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MIAMI, USA (AFP): US authorities are probing a 1997 bombing that killed an Italian tourist in Havana to determine whether it involved former CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles, the Miami Herald reported Thursday.
The daily said FBI agents recently traveled to the communist country to gather evidence on the attack, one of several Cuba claims was masterminded by Posada Carriles, including the deadly 1976 downing of a Cuban jetliner.
The paper said the Havana hotel bombing is the focus of a federal grand jury probe in Newark, New Jersey.
A Cuban-born Venezuelan national staunchly opposed to President Fidel Castro's government, Posada Carriles, 79, is currently under home detention in Miami awaiting trial later this month in in Texas on immigration charges. In an unusual move, US Federal Bureau of Investigation agents visited Cuba last year to interview witnesses, review forensic evidence and visit crime scenes related to the 1997 blast, the Miami Herald said.
A spokeswoman for the FBI in Miami declined to comment on the report, but three anti-Castro Cuban-American lawmakers condemned the decision to search for evidence in Cuba.
"By asking a state sponsor of terrorism for 'evidence' regarding terrorism, the Bush administration Justice Department demonstrates a shocking ignorance of the nature of terrorism, of its origins, and of its state sponsors," Republican US congressmen Lincoln Diaz-Balard, Mario Diaz-Balard and Ileana Ros-Lehthinen said in a joint statement.
The three legislators, all from Florida, claimed Cuba would only provide "fabricated evidence."
Cuba claims Posada Carriles planned the 1997 bombing at Havana's Copacabana hotel that killed Italian tourist Fabio di Celmo, whose family is now seeking his prosecution for the crime.
Posada Carriles was jailed in Venezuela in 1976 for allegedly masterminding the downing of the Cuban jet off Barbados, which killed 73 people.
He escaped from prison in 1985, was sentenced to eight years in jail in Panama in a 2000 bomb plot to assassinate Castro, and was pardoned four years later.
He was detained by US immigration officials in May 2005 for entering the United States illegally and lying about his immigration status.
He was released on a 350,000-dollar bond on April 19, pending the May 11 start of his trial.
Widely considered a hero among the anti-Castro exile community in Miami, Posada Carriles has turned into a hot potato for the US administration.
Cuba and Venezuela have accused the United States of harboring a known terrorist at a time when Washington claims to be waging a war on terror.
Both have both demanded his extradition, but US authorities refused, saying he might be tortured.
Washington is also seeking to bar Posada Carriles from talking about his links with the Central Intelligence Agency when he goes on trial.
In a nine-page motion filed with a federal tribunal in El Paso, Texas last week, state prosecutors claimed those ties were not relevant to the trial since his relationship with the CIA ended more than 30 years ago.
Declassified US documents show that Posada Carriles worked for the CIA from 1965 to June 1976. He also reportedly helped the US government ferry supplies to the Contra rebels who waged a bloody campaign to topple the socialist Sandinista government in Nicaragua in the 1980s. | | | | Reads : 116 | | | |
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