The May 3 attempted hijacking at the Havana airport by two conscripts who killed an officer they had taken hostage may have been a CIA-sponsored adventure, or merely evidence of desperation to get out of Cuba. (A month earlier, three men who tried to hijack a boat with passengers were condemned and summarily executed.) (DPA, BBC, May 4) But given that Luis Posada Carriles was a CIA asset when he carried out his terror campaigns against Cuba (and Nicaragua), its is pretty funny to hear these Capitol Hill anti-Fidelistas accuse Cuba of being a “state sponsor of terrorism.” How do they keep a straight face? From UPI May 4:
MIAMI — Three Cuban lawmakers have condemned the Justice Department’s decision to send FBI agents to Cuba to collect evidence against a terror suspect.
The FBI have reportedly been to Cuba recently to gather more information on the alleged involvement Luis Posada Carriles in a hotel bombing that killed an Italian in Havana in 1997.
“By asking a state sponsor of terrorism for evidence’ regarding terrorism, the Bush administration Justice Department demonstrates a shockingly profound ignorance of the nature of terrorism, of its origins and its state sponsors,” U.S. Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and brothers Lincoln and Mario Díaz-Balart said in a statement, The Miami Herald reported Friday.
Posada, who is currently under house arrest at his wife’s home in the Miami area, was recently released on bond and is scheduled to stand trial for crossing the U.S. border into Texas illegally in 2005. The 79-year-old former CIA-trained explosives expert is also wanted in Cuba and Venezuela for allegedly orchestrating the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner in Venezuela that killed 73 people.
See our last post on Cuba and Posada Carriles.
