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Accused terrorist Luis Posada Carriles has been awaiting trial for more than a year. But prosecutors keep delaying the damn thing, and Venezuela wants to see some blood already. Today a judge there decided to do the next best thing and extradited a close associate of Carriles’s, Francisco Chávez Abarca (no relation to Hugo).
Abarca, who is actually from El Salvador, is accused of setting up two bombs at a Havana hotel in 1997. He was detained last week by Venezuelan spooks. “We are leading a comprehensive fight against terrorism,” Venezuelan justice minister Tareck El Aissami said at the airport. “[Abarca] is a terrorist, and Cuba wants him.”
This is, at least, a lot more dignified than tweeting terrorism accusations, as is Hugo Chávez’s custom.
In Louise Bardach’s second book about Cuba, Carriles is linked to assassination plots against Fidel Castro in the ’60s. He also half-confesses to masterminding bombings that took place in 1976 and 1997, one of which was allegedly carried out by Abarca.
Last year, Carriles was indicted on nine charges of obstruction of justice and making false
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statements to immigration authorities when he illegally entered the United States. But the case has dragged in courts as prosecutors and his attorneys ask for time extensions.
We have a feeling that Abarca’s Cuban trial will get on a lot faster.
