If not to Venezuela, send Luis Posada to Panama

Jose Pertierra is Venezuela’s U.S. lawyer. He is demanding that Luis Posada be returned to Panama to finish out jail time there in connection with an attempt with three others in 2000 to murder former Cuban President Fidel Castro, then in Panama City. Pertierra wants Panama to issue an arrest warrant for Posada, and Washington to comply. Posada now lives freely in Miami. The attorney was responding to a unanimous ruling June 30 by Panama’s Supreme Court that pardons granted the four by outgoing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso in 2004 were unconstitutional. Their convictions and sentences stand. Declassified U.S intelligence documents show that ex-CIA operative Luis Posada, a citizen of Venezuela and Cuba, engineered the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976 resulting in the deaths of 73 people. Posada acknowledged to a New York Times reporter that he was responsible for organizing bombings of Havana hotels in 1997 in which an Italian tourist died. Posada’s other crimes are legion. The U.S. government has refused to honor requests from Caracas for Posada’s extradition so that judicial proceedings can proceed in Venezuela. With CIA help, Posada walked out of a Venezuelan jail in 1985.