Language

Two More US Protected Terrorists in Florida

Submitted July 3, 2005 - 1:13 pm by Al Giordano
Oligarch's Daily, er, the Miami Herald
reports:

Former Venezuelan National Guard Lts. Jose Antonio Colina and German Rodolfo Varela, sought by Venezuela in connection with a pair of bombings in Caracas, were transferred out of the Krome detention center in West Miami-Dade to a detention facility near Tallahassee, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said.

Barbara Gonzalez, a Miami ICE spokeswoman, said Colina and Varela were transported to Wakulla, just south of Tallahassee, with about 15 other Krome detainees.

Gonzalez would not say why or when the transfer occurred...

ICE has the prerogative to house immigration detainees at any facility it desires and can transfer them at will. Immigration officials generally try to keep detainees at or near cities where they have lawyers or relatives, but if the need arises they can be sent to any facility.

After Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles was detained in Miami-Dade in May, he was shipped to a detention facility in El Paso, Texas, where he remains.

The ex-lieutenants' transfer was surprising nonetheless because they had already spent more than a year at Krome. They were housed there soon after they arrived in December 2003 seeking asylum after a Caracas judge issued detention orders in connection with the bombings of the Spanish Embassy and the Colombian consulate on Feb. 25, 2003. Colina and Varela have denied the allegations.

On Feb. 18, an immigration judge at Krome denied asylum for Colina and Varela but deferred deportation to Venezuela on grounds that they could be tortured there.

Remember that story? At the very end of the early 2003 "strike that was not a strike," the owning-class lockout of workers from their jobs, as it had utterly failed, two bombs exploded at the embassies of governments considered to be right-wing visavis Venezuela in order to make it appear as if it was the pro-Chávez forces, maybe even Chávez himself!, that were doing terrorist acts in Caracas.

But the evidence rolled in and it turned out to be a couple of disgruntled and failed military coupsters who botched this effort to blame their bombings on the Chávez government,  and they fled to, and were welcomed, in Miami, but "put on ice" by ICE, just like Posada Carriles, thus keeping 'em quiet about what they know about this operation and others.

The stated justification for not sending these accused violent terrorists back to Venezuela? That they "might be tortured"! Sheesh, it's not as if Venezuela is proposing that they be brought to Guantanamo.

Reply

Our Policy on Comment Submissions: Co-publishers of Narco News (which includes The Narcosphere and The Field) may post comments without moderation. All co-publishers comment under their real name, have contributed resources or volunteer labor to this project, have filled out this application and agreed to some simple guidelines about commenting.

Narco News has recently opened its comments section for submissions to moderated comments (that’s this box, here) by everybody else. More than 95 percent of all submitted comments are typically approved, because they are on-topic, coherent, don’t spread false claims or rumors, don’t gratuitously insult other commenters, and don’t engage in commerce, spam or otherwise hijack the thread. Narco News reserves the right to reject any comment for any reason, so, especially if you choose to comment anonymously, the burden is on you to make your comment interesting and relevant. That said, as you can see, hundreds of comments are approved each week here. Good luck in your comment submission!

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.

More information about formatting options

User login