Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 3. maj 2007 / Time Line May 3, 2007
Version 3.005/03/2007
National Security Archive Update, May 3, 2007
DOCUMENTS LINKED TO CUBAN EXILE LUIS POSADA HIGHLIGHTED TARGETS FOR
TERRORISM
Bomber's Confessions Point to Explosives Hidden in Toothpaste Tube
that Brought Down Civilian Airliner in 1976
Former CIA Agent Posada Goes to Trial May 11
Washington DC, May 3, 2007 - Former CIA operative and indicted
terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who goes on trial for immigration
fraud on May 11, reportedly kept a detailed list of targets for
terrorism in the Caribbean "with a link to Cuba" -- four of which
were bombed in the summer of 1976 -- in his Caracas office. The
National Security Archive posted the surveillance target list on
its Web site today, among other investigative records relating to
the bombing of Cubana flight 455 in October 1976.
A Venezuelan employee of Posada conducted the surveillance on the
targets and drafted the report that included information on Cubana
Aviacion flights in and out of Barbados, according to a document
posted today. At least four targets identified in the surveillance
report -- including the Guyanese Embassy in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad
-- were subsequently bombed, and the Cubana jet was blown up in
mid-air on October 6, 1976, after taking off from Seawell airport
in Barbados, killing all 73 passengers.
Posada faced charges in Venezuela for the airplane bombing, but
escaped from prison there in 1985, participated in the White House-
and CIA-sponsored Iran-contra covert operations in Central America
in the 1980s, and illegally entered the U.S. in March 2005. He is
currently out on bail in Miami, albeit under house detention,
awaiting trial on immigration fraud next week.
Additional investigative records generated by police authorities in
Trinidad following the bombing, and posted today for the first
time, include handwritten confessions by a second Venezuelan,
Freddy Lugo, that describe how Ricardo molded plastic explosive
into a Colgate toothpaste tube to destroy the plane, as well as his
attempts to reach Posada via telephone after the plane went
down.
Thirty years after one of the most infamous attacks on a civilian
plane in the Western Hemisphere, officials at the National Security
Archive noted that this historical documentation remains relevant
for current efforts to detect and deter aviation terrorism using
explosives disguised as gels and liquids. "These documents provide
the true historical backdrop for the legal proceedings against Luis
Posada Carriles," said Peter Kornbluh who directs the Archive's
Cuba Documentation Project. "They are a critical part of the
documentary record of Posada's long career as one of the world's
most prolific international terrorists."
http://hermes.circ.gwu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=nsarchive&A=1
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