Feb. 9: In El Paso, Texas, the perjury trial of infamous violent Cuban exile, Luis Posada Carriles, took a historic turn today. For the first time in the long dramatic history dominated by hostility and aggression, U.S. government prosecutors formally presented evidence of terrorism committed against Cuba in a court of law against one of its own former CIA assets. Even more extraordinary, the evidence came in the form of a Cuban Ministry of Interior investigator explaining photographs and police reports to the jury relating to explosions in three Cuban 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.” (more…)
