JURIST - Paper Chase: Venezuela lawyer says US obstructing justice for Cuban airplane bomber

[JURIST] A lawyer for the Venezuelan government said Monday that the US is preventing Luis Posada Carriles [Wikipedia profile; additional materials] from being brought to trial for allegations that he plotted the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner [Wikipedia backgrounder; additional materials]. Carriles is currently in the US awaiting an immigration trial [JURIST report] after being arrested [JURIST report] for illegally entering Texas across the Mexican border in 2005. A federal judge last week freed Carriles on bail [JURIST report] prior to his May 11 trial for charges that he lied in his attempt to become a US citizen.

Jose Pertierra [profile], the lawyer who represents the Venezuelan government, has called on the US to return Carriles to Cuba or Venezuela [JURIST news archives] so that he can stand trial for 73 counts of first-degree murder attributed to the 1976 bombing. An immigration judge ruled in 2005 that Carriles should be deported, but not to Cuba or Venezuela [JURIST report] because of the threat that he could be tortured there. The US, however, has not yet identified a country willing to take Carriles after his upcoming trial. AP has more.

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