[Mb-civic] Honduras wants US explanation re Posada

[Barbara Siomos]

This bum has been getting away literally with murder for years and
should NOT be free anywhere. For them to say he was not helped and no
one knows how he got away is a JOKE.
barbara

Honduras Wants US Explanation For Terror Suspect's Flight DOW JONES
NEWSWIRES 
August 31, 2004 1:17 p.m.
 
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP)--President Ricardo Maduro said Tuesday he was
demanding that the United States and Panama explain how a man facing
terrorism charges may have been allowed to fly to this country on a
false U.S. passport. 
"I will not let terrorists and international criminals enter Honduras
and think that the country will be their shield and shelter," an
agitated Maduro told reporters.
 
He said he had ordered "an immediate investigation" into the case of
Luis Posada Carriles, who was freed from prison Thursday by Panamanian
President Mireya Moscoso and allowed to board a plane out of the
country.
 
Officials say there is strong evidence that the former CIA operative and
longtime foe of Cuban President Fidel Castro got off that plane in
Honduras, leaving his three colleagues to fly to Miami.
 
"I will also demand that the United States and Panama explain how Posada
Carriles used a false U.S. passport," Maduro said, and asked, "How did
that airplane leave Panama with Posada Carriles, reach Honduras and wind
up in the United States?" the president asked.
 
U.S. officials have denied any role in the pardon of Posada.
 
Maduro said Posada would be treated as an illegal immigrant if caught.
The 76-year-old faces charges in Venezuela of masterminding a 1976
bombing of a Cuban commercial airliner that killed 73 people. 
Cuba would like to try him for that as well as for other attacks. Posada
once acknowledged planning hotel bombings in which an Italian tourist
was killed. 
The four Cuban exiles were arrested in November 2000 after Cuba
announced they had come to Panama to kill Castro at a summit.
 
Panamanian courts found insufficient evidence for that charge, but
sentenced them to seven- and eight-year terms on lesser charges.
 
Moscoso, who leaves office Wednesday, said she pardoned them to prevent
the new government from extraditing them to Cuba or Venezuela, where she
said they would be killed. 

Cuba immediately severed diplomatic relations with Panama and Venezuela
recalled its ambassador. Neighboring governments, including El Salvador
and Honduras, quickly said Posada was unwelcome.
 
Moscoso's critics also have questioned the unusual way in which the four
men were flown out of Panama hours before Moscoso announced their
pardons.
 
The Miami Herald reported that Miami-area developer Santiago Alvarez had
paid for their flights. Alvarez, like Posada, is a veteran of the
CIA-organized attempt to oust Cuba 's socialist government through an
invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.
 
Cuban officials in 2001 released a tape recording of Alvarez with a man
in Cuba that they said was a discussion of planting explosives at a
Havana nightclub.
 
While Alvarez told the Herald that Posada had left Panama on a separate
flight to an unknown destination, Honduran officials say he apparently
arrived here on the same Florida-chartered plane that carried the other
three -Gaspar Jimenez, Guillermo Novo and Pedro Remon - to Miami.
 
Security Minister Oscar Alvarez said his officers were trying to
determine if Posada had left for another country in the region.