The foreign ministry of Panama announced April 17 that it would not extradite CIA-trained terrorist Luis Posada Carriles to Cuba, where he is wanted for his involvement in several murderous attacks against the Cuban people and assassination attempts against Cuban revolutionary leaders.
According to an article that appeared in the Los Angeles newspaper La Opinió n, Panama's foreign ministry explained the decision is based on "international agreements and reciprocity." Government officials said Posada will face trial in Panama and that if sent back to Cuba he could face the death penalty.
Posada Carriles and four other terrorists were arrested in Panama on November 17 at the start of the 10th Ibero-American Summit. Shortly after his arrival in the country to participate in the meeting, Cuban president Fidel Castro denounced the presence in the country of counterrevolutionary terrorists wanted for crimes against Cubans in other countries. In a meeting held an hour and a half prior to Castro's press conference, Cuban officials gave Panamanian security forces the addresses, phone numbers, descriptions, and aliases of a number of right-wing terrorists positioned to take part in an attack on the Cuban president if the time was right and the situation allowed. Panamanian authorities were asked to act as quickly as possible.
Given the public announcement that had already been scheduled, the Panamanian authorities had to either handcuff Posada Carriles or face public condemnation for allowing him to escape.
Posada had been previously arrested in Venezuela, but was allowed to escape in 1985 from a Venezuelan prison after serving eight years of a 27-year sentence for the bombing of a Cubana de Aviación airplane off the coast of Barbados. The attack killed all 73 passengers and crew.
According to Posada's own account in a 1998 New York Times article, he was recruited by the CIA to carry out assassination attempts against Cuban leaders, along with other terrorist activities, after the defeat of the U.S.-backed mercenary invasion at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in 1961. He also worked as chief of operations for the Venezuelan secret police in the 1970s. After his escape from prison he worked closely with U.S. Lt. Col. Oliver North and CIA head William Casey in the supply operation for the Nicaraguan contras organized out of the White House. They used El Salvador's Ilopango Air Base as their headquarters.
Two days after Panama's announcement of its refusal to extradite Posada to Cuba, the government of El Salvador announced that it will ask that Posada be sent there to face charges of using a false passport in an alleged plot to kill Castro. The charges stem from information provided by the Cuban government.
The Cuban daily Granma reported that former Panamanian president Aristide Royo and a number of other prominent figures in the country sent a letter to the government demanding the extradition of the terrorists to Cuba.
The Cuban government requested the extradition at the time of the five terrorists' arrests, and has continued to insist on the Cuban people's right to bring them to justice. Showing the indignation of millions of people in Cuba at the impunity with which the admitted terrorist has been active in Latin America, massive mobilizations in the country demanded Posada's extradition. The fight for the prosecution of Posada and the extent and character of his crimes against the Cuban people have also been the subject of roundtable discussions on Cuban television.