Protest over Carriles’ release

REPRESENTATIVES of the Cuban and Venezuelan embassies and friends of Cuba joined voices yesterday to denounce the verdict of a United States court in acquitting Luis Posada Carriles of several charges.
Yesterday ambassadors of the two countries joined other officials at the Paynes Bay, St James monument, erected to commemorate the lives of the 73 people who died in the Cubana Airline crash off the coast of Barbados in 1976, to lay wreaths and call for solidarity from people of the Caribbean in opposing the recent freeing of Posada in a United States court.
Cuban-born Posada had relocated to Venezuela in 1968 and after the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 he was found guilty by a military court in that country of involvement in that bombing. This ruling was overturned and he was held for trial in a civilian court, but Posada escaped from prison and fled the country, eventually ending up in the United States.
Over the years Cuba and Venezuela have unsuccessfully sought Posada’s extradition to face murder charges.
On Friday, a 12-member jury, in a federal district court in El Paso, Texas, Posada, an ex-Central Intelligence Agency operative, was acquitted of all 11 charges of lying about his alleged role in bombings in Cuba in 1997 and about how he sneaked into the United States in 2005.