Extradition Process for Posada Carriles Continues in Panama

The fifth special penal judge, Hilda Bonilla de Vidal, in charge of the case, explained that she remitted the extradition request to get a response from the Public Ministry and thus start to process the petition, reported Prensa Latina news agency. The extradition request was presented before the Fifth Penal Court of Panama last July 4 by a group of lawyers representing workers unions, indigenous organizations and student movements of the Central American country. Five days earlier, the Supreme Court of Justice had ruled that the pardon given to the terrorists on August 25, 2004, by outgoing president Mireya Moscoso is unconstitutional. The Court's ruling, which was issued unanimously, was established to have a retroactive character; for that reason the cases should be back to their state before the presidential pardon was granted to the criminals. Posada Carriles, Gaspar Jimenez, Guillermo Novo and Pedro Remon, were arrested in Panama in November, 2000, during the 10th Iberian American Summit, as they were planning to assassinate the then Cuban president Fidel Castro, while he gave a speech at a public meeting.