Luis Clemente Posada Carriles (February 15, 1928 – May 23, 2018) was a Cuban exile militant and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent. He was considered a terrorist by the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Government of Cuba, among others.
Born in Cienfuegos, Cuba, Posada fled to the United States after a spell of anti-Castro activism. He helped organize the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and after it failed, became an agent for the CIA. described by the FBI as "an anti-Castro terrorist umbrella organization". Posada and CORU are widely considered responsible for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. In addition, he was jailed under accusations related to an assassination attempt on Fidel Castro in Panama in 2000, although he was later pardoned by Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso in the final days of her term. He denied involvement in the airline bombing and the alleged plot against Castro in Panama, but admitted to fighting to overthrow the Castro regime in Cuba.
In 2005, Posada was held by US authorities in Texas on the charge of being in the country illegally: the charges were later dismissed. A judge ruled he could not be deported because he faced the threat of torture in Venezuela. The US government refused to repatriate Posada to Cuba, citing the same reason.
Posada died in May 2018 in Florida, where hardline elements of the anti-Castro exile community in Miami still regarded him as "a heroic figure".
Early years (1928–1968)
Posada was born in Cienfuegos, Cuba, on February 15, 1928. His family was relatively affluent. He had four siblings. The family moved to Havana when Posada was 17 years old, where he studied medicine and chemistry at the University of Havana. Posada worked in 1958 as a supervisor for the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company. He worked initially in Havana, and was transferred to Akron, Ohio, after the Cuban Revolution of 1959.
As a student, he had come in contact with Fidel Castro, who had become a figure of some significance in the student politics of the time. Posada later said that Castro was three years ahead of him at the university. Misgivings about the Cuban revolution led Posada to become an activist in open opposition to the new government. After a spell in a military prison, Posada sought political asylum in Mexico. By 1961, Posada had relocated to the United States where he helped to organize the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba. The rest of Posada's family remained in Cuba, and continued to support the Cuban revolution; Posada's sister eventually rose to the rank of Colonel in the Cuban army. The group first met in the Dominican Republic in June 1976, and laid plans for more than 50 bombings over the next year. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) described CORU as "an anti-Castro terrorist umbrella organization."]]
The information Posada provided the CIA while attempting to reestablish good relations with it included a tip that Cuban exiles were planning to blow up a Cuban airliner. Cubana Flight 455 was a Cubana de Aviación flight departing from Barbados, via Trinidad, to Cuba. On October 6, 1976, two time bombs variously described as dynamite or C-4 planted on the Douglas DC-8 aircraft exploded, killing all 73 people on board, including all 25 members of the 1975 Cuban national fencing team. Investigators from Cuba, Venezuela and the United States traced the planting of the bombs to two Venezuelan passengers, Freddy Lugo and Hernán Ricardo Lozano. According to a declassified CIA document dated October 13, 1976, with information from what the CIA deemed a usually reliable source, Posada – in Caracas at the time – was overheard to say a few days before Cubana flight 455 exploded: "We are going to hit a Cuban airliner ... Orlando has the details". In prison, Posada and Bosch learned to paint, and sold their artwork in the US via intermediaries. Posada was found not guilty by a military court; however, this ruling was overturned and he was held for trial in a civilian court. Posada escaped from prison with Freddie Lugo in 1977, and the pair turned themselves in to the Chilean authorities, expecting to be welcomed for their role in the killing of Letelier, who was a target of the government of Augusto Pinochet: however, they were immediately handed back to Venezuela. Posada was held awaiting trial in Venezuela for eight years before escaping in 1985 while awaiting a prosecutor's appeal of his second acquittal in the bombing. His escape is said to have involved a hefty bribe and his dressing as a priest. According to Posada, the escape was planned and financed by Jorge Mas Canosa, who by then had become head of the Cuban American National Foundation.
Contras and Central America (1985–2005)
Posada was met in El Salvador by CIA operative Félix Rodríguez, who told Posada that he was supporting him "at the request of a wealthy Miami benefactor". Rodríguez had overseen the capture of Ernesto "Che" Guevara in 1967. He offered Posada a job as his deputy, ferrying supplies to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua, in an operation directed by Oliver North: the pair were to coordinate drops of military supplies to the rebels, who opposed the Sandinista government. Posada's fortunes rose after the Reagan administration took a more confrontational approach to Cuba and expanded covert operations in Latin America. Posada was given a house and a car, and paid $3,000 per month, $750 for each flight he made, and sundry expenses, primarily by US Major General Richard Secord, who was directing operations for North. Posada was responsible for managing supply flights from the Salvadoran base of Ilopango to the Contra rebels at the border. He was also responsible for coordinating between the Contras, their advisers in the US, and their allies in the military forces of El Salvador. Operating with the Salvadoran alias "Ramón Medina", Posada built relationships inside the government of El Salvador, its military, and its infamous death squads.
The supply flights to the Contra rebels ceased in 1986, after the Nicaraguan government shot down one of the planes. Two of the crew were killed, including a close friend of Posada's. American pilot Eugene Hasenfus survived, thanks to his oft-mocked habit of wearing a parachute, and was captured by the Nicaraguan government. He confessed to the role of the US government in supporting the Contras, and his story made headlines around the world. Posada was supposed to have been on the flight himself, but missed the flight narrowly. After Hasenfus's capture became known, Posada gathered a group of soldiers and flew to San Salvador, where he emptied the safe houses used by the operation. By getting rid of this evidence, he would later claim, he saved George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan from impeachment.
Posada was forced to remain in hiding in El Salvador during the Iran-Contra hearings before signing up as a security advisor to the Guatemalan government. He also remained in contact with Cuban exile groups during this period. He added that Raúl Ernesto Cruz León, the man arrested and charged with the bombings, was a mercenary in his employ. Cruz León was sentenced to death by the Cuban authorities after admitting to the attacks; the sentence was later commuted to 30 years imprisonment. Posada repudiated his statements after being arrested in Panama in 2000. Posada himself suggested his friendship with an FBI agent made it unlikely he would be officially implicated; the FBI denied claims of any friendship.
According to Posada, much of his funding in this period came through Mas Canosa and the Cuban American National Foundation, and that Mas Canosa was aware of his role in the bombings. The Cuban Ministry of the Interior claimed that on the September 4, 1997, three bomb attacks against hotels in Havana, in which one person was killed, were planned and controlled by CANF. CANF denied the allegations. Jose Antonio Llama, a former board member of CANF, stated in an interview published in 2006 that several of its leaders planned attacks in Cuba during the 1990s. In 1997, CANF published a statement refusing to condemn terrorist attacks against Cuba; the CANF chairman at the time stated that "We do not think of these as terrorist actions". The CANF repeatedly denied links with Posada and his activities after the publication of the 1998 interview, and threatened The New York Times with legal action. Multiple members of the foundation, however, confirmed links with Posada.
Arrest, conviction and release in Panama
thumb|upright|Fidel Castro, the target of an alleged failed assassination attempt in 2000
In October 1997 Posada was implicated in an assassination attempt on Fidel Castro, after four men were arrested by the US Coast Guard in a boat off the coast of Puerto Rico. He denied any involvement, and called the plot amateurish, but was believed to have been involved by the FBI. On November 17, 2000, Posada was discovered with 200 pounds of explosives in Panama City and arrested for plotting the assassination of Castro, who was visiting the country for the first time since 1959. Three other Cuban exiles were also arrested: Gaspar Jiménez who worked at the Cuban American National Foundation in Miami, Pedro Remón Rodríguez and Guillermo Novo. and speculation was rife that the pardon was politically motivated.]]
In 2005, Posada requested political asylum in the United States through his attorney. On May 3, 2005, the Supreme Tribunal of Venezuela approved an extradition request for him. Although he was arrested following international pressure on the administration of George W. Bush to treat him on par with other suspects in the war on terror, the US refused to extradite him to either Venezuela or Cuba.
During a United Nations Security Council meeting to review the work of its three subsidiary counter-terrorism committees, the US was invited by the representatives of Venezuela and Cuba to comment on the evidence (above) in the Posada case. The US representative, Willson, stated that "an individual cannot be brought for trial or extradited unless sufficient evidence has been established that he has committed the offence charged." Willson said removal to Venezuela or Cuba could not be carried out because, she claimed, "it was more likely than not that he would be tortured if he were so transferred."