9-23-06, 9:52 am
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE SEPTEMBER 21, 2006 NLG Urges Immediate Extradition of Posada Carriles On the 30th Anniversary of the Murder of Orlando Letelier NEW YORK - September 21 - The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) calls for the immediate extradition of known terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who is wanted in Venezuela for a string of bombings. It urges supporters to join in a letter writing campaign demanding that the U.S. comply with the request of the Venezuelan government to turn Posada over for trial.
'While people of conscience mark today as the 30th anniversary of the murder of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffit, the U.S. government is about to let their alleged killers walk free,” says Michael Avery, President of the National Lawyers Guild. 'Attorney General Gonzalez has refused to honor the extradition request and let him stand trial for the crimes of which he is accused. As a result, the immigration judge, with only the pretense of government prosecution in this case, is about to set him free. '
Posada participated in organizing the assassination of Orlando Letelier, who along with U.S. activist Ronni Moffitt, was killed in a car bombing September 21, 1976, on Washington, D.C.'s Embassy Row. Letelier was Chile's foreign minister in Salvador Allende's government. Two weeks later, on October 6, 1976, Cubana Airlines flight 455 was bombed killing 73 people.
Posada told the New York Times in July 1998 that he directed the 1997 bombings of Havana hotels. A 32-year-old Italian tourist, Fabio Di Celmo, was killed at the Copacabana Hotel. While in Venezuela in the 1970s, Posada oversaw the killing of Venezuelan leftists as head of the Intelligence and Prevention Services Division (DISIP) of the national police. In the 1980s Posada commanded the supply of munitions to the Nicaraguan contras from the CIA's Ilopango airbase in El Salvador.
'We join with the family members of these victims of terrorism to demand justice in the Posada case,” says Heidi Boghosian, executive director of the NLG. “President Bush says that you’re either with us or against us in the fight against terrorism, but at the same time, his administration is giving safe harbor to a known terrorist here in the United States. Worse, the U.S. has unjustly imprisoned five brave Cubans who infiltrated extremist groups in the U.S. to prevent more terrorist attacks. Mr. President, who is for terrorism and who is against it?”
The NLG is urging its supporters to take a stand on this issue, in two ways. We encourage participation in the campaign urging Congress and Condoleezza Rice to support extradition; 20,000 letters have been sent in the last week along, through the website pephost.org/luisposada. Second, the NLG urge its members to join in the march to free the Cuban Five and important political forum in Washington, D.C. on Saturday September 23, starting at 11 am at the Justice Department. For more information on the march and forum go to freethefive.org . Speakers at the forum will include: Leonard Weinglass; Francisco Letelier, son of Orlando Letelier; Livio Di Celmo, the brother of Fabio Di Celmo; Heidi Boghosian, executive director of the NLG; Gloria La Riva, National Coordinator of the Committee to Free the Five; Saul Landau, author of Assassination on Embassy Row, and family members of the victims of the Cubana airplane bombing in 1976.
The National Lawyers Guild, founded in 1937, is a progressive bar association working in the service of the people. Its national office is headquartered in New York and it has chapters in nearly every state, as well as over 100 law school chapters. The Guild has a long history of representing individuals whom the government has deemed a threat to national security, and has helped to expose illegal FBI and CIA surveillance, infiltration and disruption tactics (COINTELPRO) that the U.S. Senate 'Church Commission' hearings detailed in 1975-76, and that led to enactment of the Freedom of Information Act and other limitations on federal investigative power. The NLG has run several educational programs with its legal counterparts in Cuba.
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