Cuba and Venezuela on Wednesday clashed with the US during a UN Security Council debate on terrorism over the case of Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative wanted for the 1976 downing of a Cuban airliner.
"Posada Carriles, who is rightly considered the most notorious terrorist of the Western Hemisphere, was released [by US justice] last year in spite of the fact that there was enough evidence linking him to some of the most infamous crimes of the 20th century," Cuban Ambassador to the UN Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz told the council.
He specifically referred to the 1976 downing of a Cuban airliner off Barbados as well as bombings in Havana hotels in 1997.
"Despite Posada Carriles's notorious hideous actions, the US government only charged him with minor migration crimes," Malmierca said.
"There is no doubt today that the true intention was to prevent the details of his criminal actions under CIA orders from becoming public ... The truth will not be concealed forever," he said.
TORTURE
US delegate Carolyn Willson responded by noting that her government was not in a position to extradite the Cuban-born Venezuelan to either Cuba or Venezuela as it was determined that "more likely than not that he would be tortured if he was so transferred."
This brought a scathing reply from Venezuelan Deputy Ambassador to the UN Aura Mahuampi Rodriguez de Ortiz, who accused Washington of protecting "a terrorist" as "a way to undermine justice."
"Venezuela simply cannot understand why the United States does not honor an extradition treaty," she said.
"This is the only thing Venezuela asks: Please comply with the commitments you have undertaken. We have presented our legitimate requests and all the necessary evidence to have the terrorist Posada arrested and extradited to our country," Rodriguez de Ortiz said.
Posada Carriles was arrested in 2005 on immigration charges, but was released in May last year after a federal judge in Texas dropped the indictment, saying the government tricked the former CIA contractor by using a citizenship interview to obtain evidence against him.
In an appeal of the decision, the US government insisted that "the record shows no deceit or trickery, nor outrageous conduct that justifies the extreme sanction of dismissal."
ACTIVITIES
Posada Carriles was jailed in Venezuela in 1976 for allegedly masterminding the downing of the Cuban jet. He escaped in 1985.
He was sentenced to eight years in jail in Panama for a 2000 bomb plot to assassinate former Cuban president Fidel Castro and was pardoned four years later.
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 oust the socialist Sandinista government in Nicaragua in the 1980s.
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