Posada denied bond; terrorism at the Bay of Pigs?

Dressed in orange prison shirt and pants, and wearing a none-too-hidden bullet-proof vest beneath his garb, Posada stood swiftly as Judge William Abbot entered the courtroom. The judge, an affable man who seemed intent on putting everyone at ease, never addressed Posada directly during the 90 minute hearing and referred to him only as "client" or "defendant." It was all but a foregone conclusion that Posada would continue to be detained without bond. And indeed this is how the judge ruled, but not without taking a few interesting turns. The two attorneys representing Posada expressed frustration that their client had not been charged with the crimes the government kept referring to by inference and implication. Matthew Archambeault claimed that the government was making reference to his client as a terrorist without having to answer for such characterizations or provide evidence of Posada’s terrorism. But this seemed an improvident point to press, as Posada was undeniably involved in a multitude of terrorist operations and attacks spanning five decades, including the infamous Operation Condor, Iran-Contra, a series of bombings in Cuba in 1997, and numerous attempts to assassinate Castro. But what weighed heavy in the courtroom is simply how to define the term terrorism. One would hope that such a term would prove not to be so malleable and manipulable as to be taken over by cynics; it is to stand for something clearly wrong, something clearly against humanity. Posada, though, makes the United States uncomfortable in the use of that term, for it is clear that much of what he did in Latin America was either at the behest of the United States or with its approval. And in recent months, more information has come to light to show clear U.S. involvement in violence and terrorism in Chile and elsewhere in Latin America over an extended period of time. For example, it now appears that Operation Condor, a cooperative venture by Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, and Bolivia to gather intelligence and hunt down and kill leftists and political opponents, was coordinated through an intelligence collection site operated by the U.S. in Panama. It also appears that U.S. encipherment systems were used to provide secure communications to the Condor group. The Condor killings, and killings of leftists generally, termed "justice actions" by Posada and his colleagues, numbered in the thousands and reached even to U.S. soil and Washington, D.C., with the assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffit less than a month before the Cubana Flight 455 bombing arranged by Posada and Orlando Bosch.

Once, when asked when his work for the CIA had ceased, Posada claimed he could not remember when he left the Agency, but then responded that "all Cubans work for the CIA." But the man sitting in front of us today worked for no one, and Judge Abbott, noting Posada’s extensive terrorist background and a formal request for his extradition to Venezuela to stand trial for the Cubana Airlines bombing, was clearly unwilling to pay serious attention to any argument for bond. The court found at least two compelling reasons to deny Posada bond. First, Posada’s illegal entry into the U.S. coupled with the formal request for extradition from Venezuela prevented judicial discretion to set bond. Second, and more to the point of Posada’s background, Judge Abbott found that the case of In re Mohammad J.A. Khalifah deprived him of the discretion to do anything but retain Posada in custody, and that policy forced him to refuse a change of venue to Miami. Khalifah held that, "An alien subject to criminal proceedings for alleged terrorist activities in the country to which the Immigration and Naturalization Service seeks to deport him is appropriately ordered detained without bond as a poor bail risk." As Judge Abbot said, it is "better to be safe than sorry," but then immediately added "not that I really want to keep this case, it’s driving my docket crazy."

But as the hearing wound down, the judge dropped a bombshell in the courtroom. He informed both the attorneys for Posada and for the U.S. Government that he would issue a pretrial order in late July or early August requiring counsel to brief the court as to whether or not Posada’s actions in support of the Bay of Pigs invasion could be construed as terrorist actions under U.S. statutes governing detention and deportability of aliens. Abbot then pointedly noted that he looked especially forward to the government’s brief on that matter. The court was silent.

  Narco News article (links embedded)

That’s right, U.S. prosecutors and Posada’s attorneys will now have to duke it out over whether the U.S. government engaged in an act of terrorism against the Cuban government in the early 1960s. And the irony is that it will be to the benefit of U.S. prosecutors to argue that it was terrorism, since it would seem to bolster the government’s case against granting Posada asylum.

  Narco News article

The government has a hot potato here.

But, the old man is sick. He could die in prison before testifying, couldn't he?