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Home/ stevenwarran's Library/ Notes/ May 19, 2005, Seattle Times - AP, U.S. documents implicate Cuban exile, by Christopher Toothaker,

May 19, 2005, Seattle Times - AP, U.S. documents implicate Cuban exile, by Christopher Toothaker,

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Luis Posada Carriles

May 19, 2005, Seattle Times - AP, U.S. documents implicate Cuban exile, bChristopher Toothaker, The Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela — Newly publicized U.S. government documents provide further clues about Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles' possible involvement in the 1976 bombing of a passenger jet, and say an informant had told the CIA about a plot to bring down a Cuban plane.

The information came to light as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez lambasted U.S. officials for charging Posada only with an immigration-related crime yesterday, saying not extraditing him would amount to sheltering a terrorist.

"The CIA knew those lords of death were going to put the bomb on the Cuban plane," Chávez said in a televised speech in the eastern city of Cumana. Posada is a naturalized Venezuelan, and the bombing was allegedly plotted in Caracas.

Posada's presence in the United States, and authorities' delay in detaining him, had sparked accusations that the U.S. government was harboring a violent fugitive even as it wages a war on terror across the globe.

One U.S. State Department intelligence brief issued after the attack and made public Wednesday says an informant claimed that Posada said weeks before the bombing: "We are going to hit a Cuban airliner."

A declassified CIA document, also made public Wednesday, said the agency had a report from an informant in June 1976 that a group headed by Posada's associate Orlando Bosch planned "to place a bomb on a Cubana Airline flight traveling between Panama and Havana."

Other government documents have described Posada, a militant opponent of Fidel Castro, as a longtime CIA agent.

Posada, 77, is accused of masterminding the attack on Cubana Airlines Flight 455, which exploded after takeoff from Barbados on Oct. 6, 1976. The attack killed 73 people.

The latest documents shedding light on the case were released by the National Security Archive, a nonprofit organization based at George Washington University that collects government records.

The State Department intelligence brief says two Venezuelans who worked for Posada in his private security company in Caracas were detained in Trinidad and Tobago on suspicion of planting the bomb.

The 1976 report to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger cited an informant as saying one of those detained, Hernan Ricardo Lozano"may have been trained in the use of explosives" by Posada.

An FBI document made public Wednesday reveals an FBI attaché in Caracas had multiple contacts with Ricardo and advised him on obtaining a U.S. visa days before the bombing — even though the attaché harbored suspicions he might have been involved in a previous bombing of Guyana's consulate in Trinidad.

Another FBI document noted Ricardo was arrested in Trinidad along with Freddy Lugo, who also worked for Posada. It said they flew to Trinidad early on the morning of the bombing, checked into a hotel with their luggage, and then left on a flight for Barbados. The report said they returned to Trinidad the same day — without their luggage.

Lugo and Ricardo later were sentenced in Venezuela to 20 years in prison, while Bosch eventually was acquitted and moved to Miami.

Posada was acquitted in two trials, but prosecutors kept him in prison while they appealed the decision. He escaped in 1985 after paying a bribe — reportedly $28,600 — to prison officers.

Posada, who was detained Tuesday in Miami, has denied wrongdoing but acknowledged entering the United States secretly through Mexico in March.

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