THE presence of Luis Posada Carriles – a man recently described as an extremely dangerous terrorist by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities – at the trial of Mafia capo Santiago Alvarez and his partner Osvaldo Mitat, is a spectacular demonstration of the necessity of the infiltration into those mafiosi groups by the five Cubans still being held unjustly in U.S. jails.

After the ICE’s unexpected admission regarding Posada’s crimes, the old terrorist’s appearance in the trial of his buddies Alvarez and Mitat surely breaks the record of absurdity in the history of the U.S. justice system.

On March 17, federal Judge James I. Cohn issued a surprise ruling determining that proceedings in the Alvarez-Mitat case would go ahead without media or public access, on account of reasons accepted by both sides that may even include national security issues, according to sources in Miami.

Simultaneously, the same judge authorized the transfer of Posada from the ICE detention center in El Paso, Texas, to Miami at the request of his lawyers.

Thus, the main defense witness who will appear in the Fort Lauderdale trial is an authentic CIA agent whose criminal history is extensively documented and acknowledged by the ICE and whom the FBI is refusing to prosecute in the courts either for his illegal entry into the country or for his terrorist acts.

Moreover, with the goal of discrediting the prosecution’s only witness, Abrascal, whom they accuse of being a "Cuban agent," defense lawyers affirmed in a statement to the Miami Herald that the FBI has documents showing that Cuba possessed information about Alvarez long before his arrest.

So the FBI not only grants impunity to terrorists but also gives information to the lawyers of individuals charged with crimes linked to terrorist activities?

According to an article on the case by Miami Herald journalist Oscar Corral, Alvarez and Mitat’s legal strategy appears to be in part oriented "toward political arguments."

The main purpose, then, of Posada’s appearance before Judge Cohn is to repeat in Fort Lauderdale what occurred in El Paso when Venezuelan lawyer Joaquín Chaffardet asserted before Judge Abbott that the defendant could not be extradited to Venezuela because he would be tortured there.

Chaffardet is a former DISIP official and torturer, and Posada’s partner in his Industrial Investigation Agency, created under CIA directions to organize torture sessions and a whole series of acts of terorrism, including the mid-flight sabotage of a Cubana Aviation passenger plane.

In El Paso, one of Posada’s lawyers, Matthew J. Archambeault, audaciously told the judge that it was not appropriate for his client to testify as he might endanger "sensitive security issues" for the United States and other countries. In what was considered veritable blackmail of the U.S. government, the Miami lawyer also stated in the middle of a news conference that Posada "knows a lot" and that if he spoke, it could be harmful for the FBI, CIA and the government in general.

Posada was recruited by the CIA in 1961 when he joined Operation 40, put together in tandem with the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, and continued to be actively involved in the "Company’s" operations until his arrest in Panama in November 2000.

While Chaffardet the Venezuelan was testifying in El Paso, news agency reports were revealing that in Honduras, a lawyer named Juan Carlos Sánchez was affirming that the FBI had protected Posada Carriles when he disappeared in that country after being pardoned in Panama by former mafiosi President Mireya Moscoso.

In Fort Lauderdale, a Posada with his back against the wall by the ICE, will utilize the secret hearing decreed by Judge Cohn in an attempt to blackmail through references, insinuations and perhaps revelations, in order to sow terror among those who are afraid of his talking too much. He has a precedent for such pressure in his terrorist curriculum: his famous interview with The New York Times.

Posada’s lawyer, Eduardo Soto, is arguing that his client should be released in the United States because of the services he provided to the CIA, which include, no doubt, the torture and murder of DISIP political prisoners in Venezuela; the sabotage of the Cuban airliner; weapons for drugs trafficking for the so-called Nicaraguan Contra forces; and, during the 1980s, advisement to various Central American regimes, acts of terrorism in Havana and the plotting of countless assassination attempts on Cuba’s president.

The ICE has retained an exit: it is hoping to give away the hemisphere’s most dangerous terrorist to a third country, in a strange and illegal operation to export a criminal protected by the White House. In an official document, these authorities admit to searching for the country that will be the victim of this murderous donation: the Osama Bin Laden of Latin America.