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Luis Posada Carriles (Chronology of an Assassin).

 

February 15, 1928: Luis Posada Carriles is born in the city of Cienfuegos, Cuba.

1954: He moves to Havana and establishes relations with politicians linked to dictator Fulgencio Batista.

1955: Secret collaborator for the Batista police.

1957: Maintains contact with the FBI.

1959: Maintains ties with extreme right-wing groups that carried out various acts of sabotage against the island.

1960: He seeks asylum in the Argentinean embassy alleging that he was politically persecuted.

February 25, 1961: Travels to Miami. A week later he joins right-wing Cuban-American organizations that were acting under order of the CIA and training for the Bay of Pigs invasion.

March-April 1961: Serves as an instructor for those in Guatemala who were preparing to join the infiltration and sabotage group in Cuba during the invasion. He did not participate in the actual invasion since his boat did not reach its destination before the failed attack by mercenary forces.

1961-1962: Joins the terrorist organization Cuban Nationalist Movement in the US.

1964-1965: He is involved in activities against the Cuban Revolution in the US, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

May 1965: The FBI reports that Posada Carriles was associated with a plot to oust the Guatemalan government.

June 1965: A declassified CIA memorandum places him with Jorge Mas Canosa in Veracruz, Mexico during an attempt to blow up a Soviet vessels.

October 1967: The CIA transfers Posada Carriles to Venezuela, where he joins the Directive of the Intelligence and Prevention Services DISIP. Under the name of "Comisario Basilio" he participates in the repression of progressive Venezuelan and Latin American groups.

1967-1976: Simultaneously works under the orders of the CIA for the Venezuelan, Guatemala, Salvadoran, Chilean and Argentinean secret services.

1971: Organizes an assassination attempt against Cuban President Fidel Castro, taking advantage of the leader's visit to Chile, Peru and Ecuador.

January 21, 1974: He is involved in placing explosives in the Cuban embassies in Argentina, Peru and Mexico.

July 1974: Sends letter and book bombs to various Cuban consulates in Latin America.

November 7, 1974: Places bombs in the Brazilian Study Institute and the Bolivian embassy in Ecuador.

June 1975: He creates the Commercial and Industry Research Firm in Caracas, Venezuela, which was used as a facade for his terrorist activities in the region.

1976: Creates, alongside Orlando Bosch, the anti-Cuban terrorist organization United Revolutionary Organizations Committee (CORU).

April 22, 1976: Involved in the detonation of a bomb in the Cuban embassy in Portugal killing two Cuban diplomats.

July 1, 1976: Places a bomb in the Costa Rica-Cuba Cultural Center in Costa Rica.

July 9, 1976: Plants bombs in luggage on Cubana Airlines in Jamaica.

July 10, 1976: Bombs the Cubana Airlines office in Barbados.

July 11, 1976: Bombs the offices of Air Panama in Colombia.

October 4, 1976: CORU takes responsibility in placing a bomb in a television station in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where the Cuban film "La Nueva Escuela" (the New School) was being shown.

October 6, 1976: He is identified as the principal mastermind, working together with Orlando Bosch, in the mid-flight bombing of a Cubana Airliner off the coasts of Barbados in which 73 innocent people were killed. Both criminals were arrested in Caracas and tried along with Hernan Ricardo and Freddy Lugo, the operatives who carried out the terrorist action.

1976-1985: Remains behind bars in a Venezuelan prison waiting for the verdict of a delayed legal process.

August 18, 1985: During a change of guards, he walks out the prison doors. After 15 days in Caracas he is transferred to Aruba on a shrimp boat. From here he travels on a private jet to Costa Rica and later to El Salvador. All of the operations were financed directly by the Cuban-American National Foundation - and indirectly by the CIA.

1985: Posada joins the group at the Ilopango Air Base that organizes the supplying of anti-Sandinista forces. He is part of an arms-trafficking network run by Oliver North, an advisor to National Security under the Ronald Reagan administration.

October 1986: After the Iran-Contra scandal, he joins a group of Venezuelan instructors who trained the Salvadoran police in counter-guerrilla techniques and interrogation.

1988: He later goes to Guatemala where he works as a security advisor for the Guatemalan Telephone company (GUATEL).

1992: The Cuban-American National Foundation creates a "military wing" in charge of preparing and executing terrorist actions against Cuba and its main leaders. Guillermo and Ignacion Novo Sampoll and Luis Posada Carriles actively participate in these operations.

1993: The Cuban-American National Foundation adopts the name Cuban National Front.

1994: Posada Carriles organizes a failed attempt against the Cuban president in Cartagena de Indias during a tour to the city's historic center with Nobel literature laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

1994-1997: He dedicates himself to training mercenaries from Central American nations to execute terrorists actions against different Cuban targets, especially those in the tourism industry.

July 12 and 13, 1998: Posada is interviewed by the New York Times and confesses to having organized a series of bomb attempts against Cuban tourist installations and acknowledged that these actions were financed by the Cuban-American National Foundation.

November 5, 2000: He goes to Panama using an El Salvadoran passport, under the name Franco Rodriguez Mena, to organize an assassination attempt against Cuban President Fidel Castro at the University of Panama, where the island's leader would speak.

November 17, 2000: Fidel Castro vehemently protests the assassination attempt against his life during the Ibero-American Summit in Panama. Panamanian officials find the explosives and detain Posada Carriles, along with Gaspar Jimenez Escobedo, Pedro Remon and Guillermo Novo Sampoll.

April 20, 2004: Those implicated in the case are sentenced to prison terms ranging from four to eight years.

August 26, 2004: Former Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso pardons the four terrorists. During the late night hours, under extreme security, the terrorists are escorted out of the El Renacer prison and taken to the Albrook airport, where the four take a plane to the Tocumen airport. There they board a private jet bound to Honduras, where Posada Carriles is left, while the others continue their flight to the US requesting political asylum through their lawyers.

March 2005: Posada enters the United States and his lawyers request asylum.

April 11, 2005: In the first of a series of special television appearances, President Fidel Castro denounces the US government's complicity with terrorism, revealing that Washington was attempting to protect Posada Carriles.

News is revealed over 10 days informed that the international terrorist was in Miami and that his asylum process was underway.

April 17, 2005: Fidel warns that Posada Carriles could "disappear" in the US. "We do not want him dead now, nor see him poisoned; we don't want them to say that he died of a heart attack or cerebral hemorrhage, we are willing to send doctors to see to his health so he can talk about what he knows and be tried," said President Fidel Castro.

May 1, 2005: During his speech before over 1.3 million people gathered at Revolution Square celebrating International Workers Day, Fidel gave more proof of the presence of Posada Carriles in Miami, a fact clearly denied by the White House.

May 4, 2005: Venezuela's Foreign Minister, Ali Rodriguez, urged the US to comply with signed agreements and extradite Luis Posada Carriles to Caracas to be tried for his crimes.

May 10: A New York Times editorial says that in the name of credibility, coexistance and justice, the US government must arrest and extradite Luis Posada Carriles to Venezuela.

May 11: Cuban President Fidel Castro quotes an FBI report recognizing that terrorists Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch are linked to the assassination of former Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and his American secretary in 1976.

May 12: Fidel accuses the US government of hiding information. A day after the bombing of the Cubana airliner off the coasts of Barbados, the FBI and CIA had knowledge of the material and intellectual authors of the criminal action, according to a document read by the Cuban leader during a special televised appearance.

May 13: Venezuela officially requests the US extradite Posada Carriles. During a press conference in Washington, families of victims of terrorism, academics, attorneys and social and religious representatives in the US demand Washington arrest and extradite Posada to Venezuela.

May 15, 2005: In an article entitled "The War that Posada Carriles Can Not Win Against Fidel Castro", the Nuevo Herald assures that the terrorist was defeated.

May 17, 2005: Over 1.2 million Havana residents have rallied in front of the US Interests Section to demand peace and an end to terrorism on behalf of the Cuban and American people, said Fidel before the beginning of the historic protest.

Posada Carriles is arrested by federal agents and taken to a southern Florida detention center where people with immigration problems are held. The Homeland Security Department says that it will analyze the his situation and in 48 hours will announce the following step of the process. Hours before, the criminal had given a press conference in which he made a request for political asylum. Later, however, Eduardo Soto, the terrorist's lawyer, reported that posada Carriles had decided to withdraw his asylum request and leave the US.

May 18: Fidel calls upon the progressive forces of the world to demand the US hand Posada Carriles over to Venezuela and be tried.

January 2006: Posada Carrile's crimes are corroborated in Venezuela. Victims of torture and families of those killed by Posada Carriles in Venezuela produce documents that proving the terrorist's responsibility in an extended series of crimes.

February 2006: Some 8,000 Havana residents, representing the island's population, participate in a 24-hour vigil in front of the US Interests Section in honor of the victims of terrorism.

March 2006: Terrorist Luis Posada Carriles will not be released "for the time being," say US immigration authorities.

March 22, 2006: The US Immigration Office sends a letter to Posada Carriles affirming that "you pose a danger to national security" and adds "you will not be released from the detention center to the Immigration and Customs Service, because as we will specify another time, you continue to be a danger for the community and a risk for all flights".

(RHC) 13-04-2007

 

 


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