BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD — Special for Granma International

AFTER using him as an agent for more than 40 years, the U.S. government is soon to interview Luis Posada Carriles to consider his application for citizenship on the basis of "honorable service to the nation," affirmed his lawyer, Eduardo Soto.

So, after having worked for four decades on a long series of the dirtiest U.S. intelligence covert operations… Posada has to kneel before his master and beg for U.S. citizenship?

"How could he have been in Fort Benning, have reached the rank of second lieutenant in the U.S. Army and not be a U.S. citizen?" asks Dr. José Luis Méndez, respected investigator and author of various books on terrorism against Cuba, in an interview with Granma International.

"What status does he have now, parolee, resident, political refugee? What was it back then? A mercenary in the U.S. Army, an officer in a bogus army?" asks the specialist.

According to the Miami El Nuevo Herald, his attorney claims to have received "a call from Washington" in which he was informed that "officials from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency" (ICE) wish to interview his client.

To Méndez, the issue of citizenship for Posada includes a long succession of contradictory incidents, some of which he cites here.

"How did he enter the U.S. embassy in Honduras in 1992 – with a Salvadoran passport in the name of Franco Rodríguez Mena or another one of his pseudonyms – if in reality the embassy wanted to meet with Luis Posada Carriles?" wonders Méndez.

That visit occurred on February 7, 1992. The terrorist had a pleasant meeting with FBI special agent George Kiszynski —whom he called a "friend" – and with colleague Michael Foster, from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, in the local number 426 of the U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa. Kiszynski spoke with Posada, a fugitive from justice in Venezuela and notorious terrorist, about every aspect of his participation in the clandestine and criminal operations carried out in 1985 and 1986 at the Ilopango airbase.

This meeting was reflected in a declassified document published June 9, 2005 by the National Security Archives of the George Washington University.

"That FBI special agent (Kiszynski) appears in my last book. He is of Chilean origin. He directed "Bombillo" González in his attacks on Nicaraguan interests during the 80’s. In the 90’s they called him from Guatemala to advise him of the attacks that were to occur in Havana," said Méndez. Jorge "Bombillo" González was the military chief of the Insurrectional Revolutionary Movement, an anti-Cuban terrorist group.

"Posada once told María Elvira Salazar on Miami television, that he had been in Sierra Leona when a violent incident occurred and he had taken refuge in the U.S. embassy. He said that he had a U.S. passport."

The terrorist restated this in an interview with Ann Louise Bardach and Larry Rohter published by The New York Times July 12, 1998. Posada affirmed then that he had a U.S. passport. He confirmed that he had used it to gain refuge in the U.S. embassy in Sierra Leona, during the disturbances of 1997 under still unknown circumstances.

According to Bardach and several other experts, Posada has made numerous illegal trips to U.S. territory over the years. In his three-day interview with Bardach, which started on June 18, 1998, Posada revealed that he then had four different passports.

The terrorist entered the United States several times between August 1997 and April 2000, according to a report on the migratory movements of Franco Rodríguez Mena (his pseudonym), issued November 18, 2000 by the El Salvador General Migration Department, which was exposed by investigative journalist Raúl Gómez in an article published by Rebelión last September.

In 1997, while hotels in Havana were experiencing bomb blasts, Posada Carriles arrived in New York, August 26, on Taca International flight 730. On April 10, 1998 – while he was planning to assassinate the Cuban President in the Dominican Republic – he traveled again to the United States using the Salvadoran passport A143258.

"How could he have been in the service of the CIA, in the United States, between 1961 and 1966?" Méndez would like to know. "And how did he get to Venezuela? How did he enter? As a Cuban? With what passport and who renewed it all those years?

Posada entered Panama November 5, 2000. His migratory status at that time, in that country, is still ambiguous.

"Posada entered Panama as Franco Rodríguez Mena and Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo entered as Manuel Díaz. Who went to the Panamanian jail to document Jiménez as a U.S. citizen? If it was not the INS (the predecessor to the ICE), then Jiménez entered with false U.S. documentation. Who gave it to him?"

"If it was with U.S. documentation, then it was the INS who organized it for him to enter Miami with his own identity. Was there complicity for his entry into the United States or not? If not, how then did Jiménez enter with a false document? Wouldn’t that be a crime in the United States to enter with false documents?"

The case of Posada is similar, said Méndez. "He was in jail as a Salvadoran: How did he leave? How did the Panamanian officials send him off in the plane? As Rodríguez Mena? It is known that he used a false U.S. passport – in the name of Melvin Cloide Thompson – given to him in Honduras by Rafael Hernández Nodarse. So, the U.S. immigration service went to document Jiménez… But not Posada? He left Panama without papers?"

The Cuban investigator has a clear opinion: "I am convinced that the INS prepared them (his papers)…And if not, what did happen? Let them prove the contrary!"

August 26, 2004, Pedro Crispín Remón, Omega-7assassin, Gaspar Jiménez and Guillermo Novo, all CORU assassins, arrived in Miami from Panama aboard a private jet, just a few hours after their surreptitious release from jail at 5:00 a.m. by the corrupt president of the isthmus. Posada, for his part, vanished. He traveled under the protection of the FBI, affirmed witness Juan Carlos Sánchez, a Honduran lawyer.

The interview with Posada with the federal naturalization services is scheduled for April 20 in El Paso, Texas.