Release for the four dangerous international terrorists?
BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD—Special for Granma International—
ON Wednesday, September 3 in Panama, a preliminary hearing will
determine the fate of four exceedingly dangerous international terrorists,
including none other than Luis Posada Carriles, an individual whose bloody
history dates back to dirty CIA covert operations in the 1960s, and whom
various experts have linked with the assassination of former U.S. president,
John F. Kennedy.
A Panamanian court judge will have the responsibility of
keeping away from their arsenals those notorious killers
from Miami mafia organizations, whose victims in Cuba,
the United States and elsewhere reach the thousands.
Posada Carriles, aged 74; Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, 67;
Guillermo Novo Sampoll, 62; and Pedro Remón, 58 were
arrested in Panama City on November 17, 2000, shortly
after Cuba revealed to the Panamanian authorities a
conspiracy to kill President Fidel Castro in the middle of a
mass meeting in the University of Panama auditorium, in
what would have been a massacre averted at the last
minute.
THE MOST DANGEROUS TERRORIST IN THE HEMISPHERE
With Orlando Bosch of Miami, Posada shares the title of
most dangerous terrorist in the hemisphere, in the words of
the FBI. And without exception, his accomplices have
lengthy terrorist records. Among other crimes, Jiménez is
the murderer of Cuban technician Artagñán Díaz Díaz
in
Mexico; Remón killed Félix García Rodríguez,
Cuban
diplomat to the UN; and Novo was involved in the
assassination of the former Chilean foreign minister,
Orlando Letelier.
On November 19, 2000 Panama’s highest authorities
confirmed that they had arrested various terrorists,
including Posada, Jiménez, Novo and Remón, and
additionally had uncovered proof of the terrible conspiracy,
such as a large quantity of U.S. manufactured C-4 explosive
and compromising documents.
However, in the following months, the seeming
determination of the Panamanian legal apparatus to
prosecute the four suspects dissolved in the face of
interventions by the Miami mafia linked to powerful sectors
of the Panamanian bourgeoisie, behind the scenes
maneuvers, press campaigns and other stunts orchestrated
by Rogelio Cruz. It should be noted how this former
Panamanian attorney general, deposed due to his relations
with the Colombian cartels, was selected by the Miami
capos to get their protégés out of jail.
Conclusion: fully justified extradition applications for
Posada Carriles on the part of Cuba and Venezuela were
dismissed, as well as a request for DNA samples, and the
latest discovery of those in charge of saving the four
terrorists: the explosives detonator has evaporated into thin
air, while the conspirators’ driver, a sudden victim of
amnesia, does not recall having seen the explosives.
Thus, next Wednesday, the killer quartet will end up
confronting not a charge of attempted murder, as would be
logical, but four lesser charges: possession of explosives,
illicit association in order to commit a crime, and
falsification of public documents.
FAR BEYOND THE AUDITORIUM CRIME
But the case of Posada, Remón, Jiménez and Novo goes
way beyond what took place in Panama on that November 17, 2000.
All of them have records of more than 40 years of consistent terrorist
activity,
leaving in their wake thousands of dead and wounded, families destroyed,
children orphaned, principally in Cuba, but also in the United States,
Latin
America and various nations outside this continent.
Posada, Remón, Jiménez and Novo were, on many occasions,
the founders of
terrorist organizations that, with the protection of the U.S. intelligence
agencies and the highest spheres of government, spilled the blood of innocent
victims.
The case of Posada is even more dirty and at the same level as his most
prized
alter ego, Orlando Bosch, the killer pediatrician who now moves freely
through the streets of Miami, benefiting from a presidential blessing.
Posada’s history dates back to the CIA’s Operation 40, through which dozens
of saboteurs, assassins and terrorists were trained at Fort Benning to
support
the projected Bay of Pigs invasion. That force gave rise to some of the
worst
criminals known in the United States in following decades, including various
drug traffickers who converted Miami into the continental drugs capital.
Various experts on the conspiracy to kill U.S. president John Kennedy affirmed
that Posada was in Dealey Square from where the fatal shots were fired.
Some
even state that the Cuban-American was one of the snipers whose bullets
hit
the U.S. head of state.
Sources likewise indicate that Posada was one of the most perverse of the
mercenaries in Viet Nam who directed the sinister Operation Phoenix, where
thousands of sympathizers of the Vietnamese revolutionary forces were
eliminated in extermination camps.
Posada turned up again in Venezuela where, as he recently boasted from
his
Panamanian cell, he carried out another dirty operation which, he claims,
systematically eliminated partisans of the guerrilla struggle. In this
sister
country, he reached the highest leadership role in the DISIP, at the time
penetrated by the CIA.
He joined the terrorist group CORU when it was founded by Orlando Bosch
under the instructions of George Bush Senior, then head of the CIA. He
coordinated a whole series of explosions in the United States, Spain, Jamaica,
Barbados, Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago and Panama against Cuban and
foreign diplomatic buildings and airlines, and various assassinations.
On October 6, 1976 in conjunction with Orlando Bosch, Posada masterminded
the sabotage in full flight of a Cubana Aviation passenger plane off the
coast of
Barbados, killing all 73 persons on board.
Posada and Bosch were subsequently detained by the Venezuelan authorities,
but continued directing CORU operations from prison, and in 1977 planned
various acts of terrorism against Venezuelan interests and targets abroad,
as a
means of pressure.
Luis Posada Carriles’ links with the drug trafficking world date back to
those of
Operation 40 but developed significantly in the 1980s, after he escaped
from
the Venezuelan penitentiary where he was being held.
His escape, ordered, financed and organized by the CIA and the Miami mafia
cupola, resulted in his becoming the right-hand man of Félix Rodríguez,
one
of the most faithful “Company” scum in the Ilopango airbase in El Salvador,
in a shady chapter of the ill-named Iran-Contra scandal. The leader of
the
gang maintained his links with the drug trafficking circles of Miami, the
U.S.
drugs capital.
In 1997, various Salvadoran and Guatemalan mercenaries were arrested in
Cuba and revealed how terrorist Luis Posada Carriles had contracted them
to
place explosive devices in tourist installations in Havana, at the price
of a few
hundred dollars per explosion.
On November 15, 1997, The Miami Herald published the results of its
investigation into the campaign of terror in the Cuban capital and affirmed
that Posada Carriles was the brains behind the operation, for which he
had
collected $15,000 in Miami.
However, in articles in The New York Times, run on July 11, 12 and 13,
1998, Luis Posada Carriles himself confessed to his crime, stating that
he had
received $200,000 from the hands of Jorge Mas Canosa, president of the
Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF), for funding the terrorist plot.
At the time of his arrest in Panama, Posada had just visited his partner
José
Valladares Acosta, a drug trafficker on the run from U.S. justice, who
conveniently died on October 7, 2001 while awaiting trial as an accomplice
of
the sinister planned attack on Fidel. Valladares was associated with
Cuban-American Orestes Cosío, deported on May 22, 2003 to the United
States for drug trafficking and participation in three homicides, but his
name
still does not appear in the files of those held by the U.S. federal prison
service.
PEDRO REMON, THE OMEGA 7 KILLER
According to a declassified FBI report, datelined October 1993 and published
on the Internet, Pedro Crispin Remón Hernández, the current
spokesman for
Posada and his buddies in their luxurious detention apartment in the Renacer
“model” prison, was first linked to terrorist activities when he was arrested
on
the borders of Canada and the United States in December 1980, a few hours
after the explosion of a bomb in the Cuban Consulate in Montreal. He was
accompanied by Ramón Saúl Sánchez Riso, now a well-known
figure in the
Miami mafia, and another one to have forgotten his murky past.
While cooperating with the FBI a few months later, Eduardo Arocena, chief
of
Omega-7, identified Remón as the killer in the murders of Eulalio
José Negrín,
a Cuban émigré involved in a political dialogue with Havana,
and diplomat
Félix García Rodríguez. The latter was intercepted
alone in his car at a
stoplight, and cowardly killed in a submachine gun attack, on September
11,
1980.
Negrín was killed in front of his 12-year-old son on November 25,
1979.
(Orlando Bosch bragged about ordering the crime in prison in Venezuela).
Both victims were killed with the same weapon, a MAC 10 submachine gun.
Arrested in 1986 and brought before a grand jury, Pedro Remón refused
to
cooperate and was saved… benefiting from a 10-year prison terms and a
$20,000 fine.
Once released, this dangerous individual didn’t hesitate to involve himself
in
new acts of terrorism.
Arocena, the former chief of Omega-7, always believed he had been
denounced to the FBI in 1979, by another terrorist, presently also detained
with Posada Carriles: Guillermo Novo Sampoll, one of the authors of the
double homicide of the former Chilean foreign minister Orlando Letelier
and
human rights worker Ronnie Moffit, on September 21, 1976.
Five suspects of Cuban origin were arrested by the FBI, including brothers
Guillermo and Ignacio Novo, two capos from the CORU of Bosch and Posada.
The brother terrorists were not unknown to the FBI. In 1961, on the orders
of
the Nationalist Cuban Movement (MNC) they had joined in preparations for
the Bay of Pigs invasion but their group did not land. Afterwards they
linked
up with Julio Pérez Pérez’ group and publicly admitted to
having placed
bombs on behalf of Comando Cero. In 1962, they attacked the Cuban vessel
María Teresa in the port of Montreal, Canada. They were detained
in 1964,
and charged with attacking the UN building with a bazooka when
Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara was speaking before the General
Assembly. In 1965, they were again arrested for the illegal possession
of arms
and explosives.
In 1979 the Novo brothers were finally tried and sentenced to eight years’
imprisonment, a term that was revoked in 1980. Their defense used various
subterfuges to discount the prosecution’s key evidence. Yet another trick,
no
doubt inspired by the CIA to save its collaborators.
Shortly after their release, Ignacio and Guillermo Novo were contracted
by the
CANF and its head, Jorge Mas Canosa, to direct the group’s Information
Committee. They also pursued their terrorist career from the terrorist
“protectorate” of South Florida.
JIMENEZ, ANOTHER CORU KILLER
This terrorist’s name appears in an FBI report on anti-Cuban activities
in the
United States, entitled Survey of Anti-Castro Cuban Terrorist Activities
in the United States, where he is noted as one of the central Miami terrorist
figures.
In fact, Jiménez is yet another CIA baby who, under the orders of
Orlando
Bosch, executed a whole series of criminal acts, including a number of
murders.
On July 23, 1976, Jiménez cold-bloodedly killed Artagñán
Díaz Díaz, a fishing
industry professional, in Mérida, Mexico.
The Miami killer opened fire three times against Díaz in the middle
of the
street. One of the bullets hit the Cuban official full in the face and
the other
two reached vital organs.
Jiménez subsequently ordered the torture and execution in Buenos
Aires of
two Cuban officials – Crecencio Galañena Hernández and Jesús
Cejas Arias –
whose bodies were thrown into the foundations of a building under
construction.
He later confessed to Cuban agent Pedro Escalona , infiltrated into the
Miami
mafia, that he had been involved in the organization of the above-mentioned
Cubana Aviation sabotage.
Sentenced for the homicide of Artagñán Díaz Díaz,
Jiménez was imprisoned in
Chetumal, Qunitana Roo, but the Miami mafia managed to buy his release.
In May 1983, barely 27 months after his detention, Gaspar Jiménez
Escobedo
was set free, and resumed his criminal activities.
He then resurfaced on the board of the CANF under the protection of Alberto
Hernández, one of the capos who attend to terrorist actions. There
he was in
constant contact with Luis Posada Carriles, Pedro Crispin Remón
and
Guillermo Novo Sampoll with whom he mounted terrorist operations on
various occasions.
THE FORMIDABLE TASK OF JUDGE PANIZA
When the trial of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles and his accomplices resumes,
Judge Enrique Paniza of the Fifth Penal Court will bear the huge responsibility
of deciding if Posada, Remón, Jiménez and Novo remain behind
bars or
return to the streets to renew their terrorist activities, as they always
have
done.
He will have facing him a whole troupe of Miami terrorists who will impunely
arrive to try and influence the course of his decision by any means – including
violence, blackmail or bribery.
Each one of the charged killers has a history whose pages are soaked in
the
blood of dozens of victims.
According to specialists, if it had gone ahead as planned, the Panama crime
would have provoked more victims than the attack on the Twin Towers. Julio
Berríos, representing the Panamanian trade unions, affirmed there
were a few
thousand people present that night.
Will the Panamanian judge allow these four notorious terrorists to commit
even more crimes? Will the decisions needed to keep these patent recidivists
of
international terrorism off the streets?
On Wednesday, September 3, the world will have its sights on Panama where
the fate of those individuals, who to date have never paid the price of
their
crimes, will be decided.