Problematic Posada

By Bill West

Cuban exile and naturalized Venezuelan citizen Luis Posada Carriles, who is a fugitive from Venezuela, that country seeking to extradite him in connection with the case of a 1976 bombing of a Cubana airliner for which Posada was twice acquitted but wherein the Venezuelan government had appealed the findings, and Posada escaped custody in 1985 before the appeal was finalized, has now been arrested by agents of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Reporters from the Miami Herald clandestinely interviewed Posada at a Key Biscayne condo over the weekend. Posada, who had filed a political asylum application with the US Government through his Miami attorney, was essentially "hiding in plain sight" from Federal Homeland Security authorities that, at least until yesterday, were not aggressively seeking to locate and arrest him.

Posada held a news conference at a warehouse in Miami, discussed his plight with reporters, and was then arrested by ICE agents as he went to a house elsewhere in Miami allegedly to gather some personal belongings. The agents put Posada on a Government helicopter, flew him to Homestead Air Reserve Base where it�s believed he was flown by Government plane to an undisclosed detention facility.

Posada is believed, from available reports, to have also been responsible for a string of bombing attacks against Cuban tourist hotels in 1997 in which one Italian tourist was killed. Posada claimed responsibility for these actions in a 1998 New York Times interview, but later recanted. In the most recent Miami Herald interview, published May 17, 2005, Posada refused to either confirm or deny his involvement in those hotel bombings, but merely said it should be "left for history."

The Posada case poses a counter-terrorism dilemma for the Bush administration. Many within and outside the US consider Posada to be an alien terrorist who has now confirmed, by his own admission to the media, to have illegally entered the US. And, there appears to be at least some viable evidence supporting that position. Others, especially among the politically influential Cuban-American community in south Florida, consider Posada to be a "freedom fighter."

The Feds finally did the right thing yesterday by arresting and detaining Posada. The evidence indicates that Posada is an illegal alien who is suspected of committing acts of terrorism outside the United States. The USG is simply properly enforcing US immigration law by arresting and detaining Posada, who will receive appropriate due process under US law while his removal case is adjudicated.

But, there is more to this case. It is highly unlikely that 77 year old Luis Posada Carriles illegally entered the US and was secreted from Federal authorities for a couple of months in south Florida on his own. He had help. He probably had help from well off and maybe even well connected people in the Cuban-American community in south Florida. The Federal Government nowadays makes much of how border security is supposed to be a top priority of its homeland security measures and how alien smuggling is a crime it aggressively pursues. Posada Carriles, in all likelihood, was smuggled into the United States and then illegally aided, abetted and harbored in south Florida until his arrest on May 17. It appears an old terrorist suspect and his cronies rather easily penetrated our Nation�s border defenses.

And, Posada Carriles is not just any �regular� illegal alien suspect. He is arguably a terrorist alien suspect. Title 8, United States Code, Section 1327 is a felony offense that applies to persons who assist, aid or abet the illegal entry of certain subversive (terrorist) aliens into the United States. Will those who assisted Posada Carriles to enter and remain in the United States be investigated for such violations?

How the US Government further pursues and handles the Posada Carriles case may be an interesting test of its direction in the Global War on Terror.

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