By Tamara Pearson:

Mérida, May 17th 2011 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuela will continue demanding that the United States extradite Luis Posada Carriles, wanted for terrorism, after he was found “not guilty” in a trial in the U.S. on other charges, since his current legal status means there is “no argument” as to why he can’t be extradited.

Referring to Posada Carrilles during open debate time at the United Nation’s (UN) Security Council meeting, Jorge Valero,Venezuela’s representative to the UN, said that the U.S. is preventing the judgment of “this notorious international terrorist who walks freely in the streets of Miami, Florida.”

Early last month Carriles was declared not guilty of migratory crimes in a trial held in a Texas court. Posada Carriles is wanted by the Venezuelan justice system for his responsibility in the blowing up of a Cubana de Aviacion airplane in 1976; causing the death of 73 people.

At the time of the Texas trial the Venezuelan government put out a statement calling the trial a “farce” and suggesting the U.S.government was “protecting” Carriles. The Venezuelan government argued that the U.S. Department of Justice had “done nothing to allow the initiation of the extradition process requested byVenezuela...The U.S. government protection of Posada Carriles has become an emblematic case of U.S. double standards in the international fight against terrorism.”

Luisa Morales, president of the Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal of Justice, told press yesterday in Cuba that now that the trial in the U.S. is over, “according to international treaties, now that there is no process or sentence pending, our extradition request is even stronger”.

Morales cited the Montreal Treaty, of which the U.S. is signatory, as well as another agreement Venezuela signed in New York which says terrorism involving explosives on planes implies immediate extradition.

Further, Valero argued that Venezuela is committed to applying the UN’s Global Stategy and its resolutions 1573 (2001) and 1624 (2005) which urge countries not to give refuge to terrorists and to not use political reasons to deny extradition requests.

“While confessed and convicted terrorists are protected, five innocent Cuban citizens who worked specifically against terrorism are still unjustly detained in United States jails,” Valero said, referring to the “Cuban Five” who U.S. courts found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage. Cuba says the five men were intelligence agents monitoring Miami’s Cuban exile community, not the U.S. government, and were sent there in the wake of hotel bombings in Cuba that Havana accuses Posada Carriles of planning and financing.

“While the practice persists of classifying some terrorists as good and others as bad, while state terrorism is still promoted, while innocent people are killed in the name of a supposed fight against terrorism, and while the norms and principles of the United Nations Charter and international law are violated, the world won’t be more secure,” Valero said.

The U.S.government “tries to justify preventative war, regime change, state terrorism and it leaves the precarious international legal architecture to one side,” he concluded.

Published on May 17th 2011 at 5.09pm

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