Cuban Exile 'Would Be Tortured' If Returned To Venezuela
Cuban exile 'would be tortured'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4199384.stm
8/30/2005
Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles would be tortured if he were extradited to Venezuela, a US court has heard.
Joaquin Chaffardet, a Venezuelan lawyer, said it was also very likely Caracas would send him to Cuba.
The statement was made at a hearing in Texas to decide whether Mr Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative and anti-Cuban activist, will be deported.
The 77-year-old is wanted by Venezuela over a 1976 plane bombing which killed 73 people. He denies involvement.
'Terrorist'
Mr Chaffardet testified on behalf of Mr Posada Carriles before an immigration judge in El Paso, Texas, where the Cuban exile is fighting deportation.
The lawyer said Venezuela has denounced Mr Posada Carriles as a terrorist and he believed he would almost certainly "be sent immediately" to Cuba.
Venezuela accuses him of planning the bombing of the Cubana Airlines plane on a flight from Caracas to Havana.
Mr Posada Carriles has applied for asylum in the US after being arrested in Miami in May on charges that he entered the country illegally.
A naturalised Venezuelan, he was twice acquitted by Venezuelan courts of plotting to bomb the plane.
He escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985 while awaiting a trial on appeal.
Mr Posada Carriles is also wanted by Cuba for a series of bombings of hotels in Havana in 1997.
The US says it will not extradite people to any country which could then hand them over to Cuba.
