The BBC is reporting that the United States has chosen to reject Venezuela's extradition request for Luis Posada Carriles on the grounds that they have not provided sufficient evidence. If this weren't so deadly serious a matter, it would be quite laughable, because even the declassified CIA and FBI documents on him link him much more tightly to terrorism than any of the people the Department of Homeland Security has arrested in the last several years. In 1998, Posada admitted to the New York Times about his involvement in a string of 1997 bombings in Havana, something they mentioned again in a more recent article on his current predicament, and that is discussed somewhat more thoroughly in a Democracy Now interview with the New York Times journalist who interviewed Posada for the 1998 article. I'm not sure how much more evidence the U.S. government thinks they need to allow Venezuela to bring him before a court.
For those that aren't familiar with the name, Luis Posada Carriles spent a lifetime involved with fighting Fidel Castro in Cuba, was trained by the U.S. to help him do so, and used to work with the CIA. The problem is that his methods were pretty extreme — he's been connected to a string of hotel bombings, the bombing of an airliner, and a variety of other attacks. It's pretty much undisputable that these are terrorist acts, and the evidence is very, very strong that he was not only involved, but the primary engineer behind them. The problem for the U.S. is that they were attacks that the U.S. was supporting, because they wanted to hurt Fidel Castro, and now they're in the sticky situation of having to protect one of their own terrorists at the same time that they're trying to protect the idea that they are the good guys in a "war on terrorism".
The issue is made somewhat more complex by his "acquittals" in his previous trials in Venezuela on the 1976 bombing of Cubana flight 455, the crime for which Venezuela specifically wants him returned, but even the United States isn't making a big deal out of the "double jeopardy" implication because of a few factors most of Posada's supporters don't care to talk about: first, his acquittals were never legally complete, as Posada managed to bribe his way out of prison before the government appeal process was finished. Second, as made most visible by the fact that he could bribe his way out of prison, the corruption of the Venezuelan judicial system afforded him a good deal of protection (it is mentioned in the interview linked above that it was possible to "get an acquittal in Caracas back then, you know, for around $45". The only real argument that the United States could bring forth is that the corruption of the current Venezuelan judicial system may be a significant factor — but in that case, the obvious answer would be to turn him over to the World Court, which the United States desperately wants to avoid legitimizing so that U.S. citizens don't end up getting prosecuted there for their war crimes.
What a tangled web has been woven.
This is a lose/lose scenario for the United States, but it appears that the Bush administration's chosen out is going to be to attempt to spin it out that he's actually innocent, and hope not many people check the records, a technique that has worked well for them in the past domestically, but that I suspect will hold less water internationally.
