Immigration Fraud Case Against Luis Posada Carriles Dismissed

The Washington Post (here) reports that a federal judge in El Paso, Texas judge threw out an immigration fraud indictment against a former CIA operative, drawing accusations from Cuba and Venezuela that the White House had manipulated the legal system. Luis Posada Carriles, 79, a fierce opponent of Fidel Castro, was accused of entering the U.S. illegally and was detained in May 2005. Authorities said he later lied about how he entered the country when he sought to become a naturalized U.S. citizen.  Cuba and Venezuela also want Posada extradited for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. The judge’s ruling Tuesday did not involve the extradition requests.

In throwing out the fraud indictment, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone said the government manipulated Posada’s naturalization interview. She said the government’s Spanish-to-English interpretation of the April 2006 interview was “so inaccurate as to render it unreliable as evidence of defendant’s actual statement.”

Click here for a copy of Judge Cardone’s order.

KJ