REPORTER: David OShea
At the old American Club in Havana a mock trial is under way. The accused has been the most wanted man in Latin America for over 30 years.
LT COL FRANCISCO ESTRADA, (Translation): We are going to prove, or try to prove, Luis Faustino Clemente Posada Carriles was the person in charge of implementing each and every one of these acts of terrorism against Cuba.
Luis Posada Carriles is being tried in absentia for multiple acts of terrorism, which have killed scores of people. Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Estrada from the Interior Ministry has spent the last 10 years investigating these crimes.
LT COL FRANCISCO ESTRADA, (Translation): Some day in the future, someone decent will take away his impunity and put Posada where he belongs - in the dock somewhere.
In 2005, the 77-year-old Posada was protesting his innocence in Texas.
LUIS FAUSTINO CLEMENTE POSADA CARRILES, NEWS FILE, (Translation): I want to emphasise that I had nothing to do with the act mentioned.
The governments of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua all want him to stand trial but when he turned up in the US with a false passport two years ago, he was only charged with immigration offences.
JOSE PERTIERRA, LAWYER FOR THE VENEZUELAN GOVERNMENT: If Posada was named Mohammad and if instead of being from Cuba, nationalised Venezuelan citizen was instead from Saudi Arabia, you can bet your bottom dollar that Posada Carriles would have been extradited quicker than you could sneeze. But Posada is not only a Cuban naturalised Venezuelan citizen but he is a CIA operative so it's a much more difficult case.
In a career spanning almost half a century, Luis Posada Carriles has dedicated his life to a crusade against communism, in particular Fidel Castro. And for much of that time he was working with the CIA.
JOSE PERIERRA: Posada Carriles is the most notorious terrorist in the western hemisphere. He is responsible for torture and murder in places as far away as Panama, Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Cuba. He has participated in terrorist acts since the early 1960s.
This Cuban documentary looks at the worst of the crimes blamed on Posada, the blowing up of a Cuban civilian aeroplane in Barbados in 1976. All 73 people on board were killed including the national youth fencing team. Nine days later more than a million Cubans gathered to pay tribute to the dead.
FIDEL CASTRO, NEWS FILE (Translation): We cannot say that the pain is divided among us. It is multiplied among us.
Until the September 11 attacks, the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 was described as the deadliest act of terrorism in the Americas. The pilot's last recorded words were a desperate plea for help.
SEAWELL, CUBANA 455: We have an explosion on board. We are descending immediately. We have a fire on board.
CONTROL: Flight 455, you are clear to land. Roger.
CUBANA 455: Close the door. Close the door! That's worse. Stick to the water, stick to the water.
PROSECUTOR, (Translation): Do you recognise the voices we just heard in the recording?
ODALYS PEREZ RODRIGUEZ, (Translation): Yes.
Odalys Perez Rodriguez was 10 years old when her father's last words were recorded.
ODALYS PEREZ RODRIGUEZ, (Translation): Throughout these years the pain my family and I have experienced has become a great sadness. A father's and a grandfather's love, I was unable to experience that.
JUDGE, (Translation): Thank you very much. You can sit down. Witness, Aimer Espinosa Gomez
The co-pilot also left a 10-year-old daughter behind.
AIMER ESPINOSA GOMEZ, (Translation): They have managed to cause my family great sadness. I have had but one single dream since 6 October 1976, I dream only of my father being found alive on some island, maybe as a castaway. I've always had these hopes that I know aren't real. But they've made me suffer for the last 30 years.
JOSE PERTIERRA: From the sea were recovered only 9 of the 73 bodies. And those nine bodies that were recovered were pieces of bodies. You can understand why the family members would want the person responsible for this, the mastermind of this gross murder to be tried for it.
LT COL FRANCISCO ESTRADA, (Translation): This is just the ongoing story of the US Government's protection of Posada Carriles. To charge him has a terrorist would be to charge themselves, as his bosses during all his activities against Cuba. That is all.
The Luis Posada Carriles story is also the story of US interference in Latin America. Way back in 1961, Posada was one of the anti-Castro exiles trained by the CIA to take part in a failed invasion of Cuba. But he never made it to the Bay of Pigs, instead he studied demolition, propaganda and intelligence, becoming second lieutenant in the US Army. Posada moved to Miami in 1964 and, by his own admission, continued to plot Castro's overthrow with the full support of the CIA. These old warhorses in Miami's Little Havana still fantasise about Castro's demise.
MAN, (Translation): Look, this is Fidel Castro and he died here.
To them Posada is not a terrorist but a freedom fighter.
MAN 2, (Translation): He wasn't responsible for the plane bombing up.
REPORTER, (Translation): Wasn't he?
MAN 2, (Translation): No.
REPORTER, (Translation): Is that what everyone here thinks?
MAN 2, (Translation): And in Cuba as well. Castro's Government knows it.
REPORTER, (Translation): What about those who say Posada Carriles is a terrorist?
MAN, (Translation): We have no answer to that. They can think what they like. All we care about is Fidel Castro. Fidel Castro and his brother and his little group, that's all.
In 1968 Posada moved from Miami to Caracas where he became chief of operations for Venezuelan intelligence. He has boasted about fighting a very dirty war against Cuban-backed communist guerrillas. In Caracas I managed to track down two women who were prisoners of Posada in 1972. Marlene Esquivel says that Posada - now calling himself Commissioner Basilio - even tortured her 3-week-old baby.
MARLENE ESQUIVEL, (Translation): He burned her several times with a cigarette. And Basilio himself covered the baby's nose. I couldn't... I kept moving her to stop him from... I was trying to but, yes, they tortured her a lot. They'd put a revolver here, and cock the trigger like this, and then they'd make a loud noise like a gunshot. That's how it was.
Eight months pregnant at the time, Marlene's sister Brenda says Posada, AKA Basilio, gave the order to kill her unborn child.
BRENDA, (Translation): They said to Basilio, "The lady is pregnant, she is due in days, what do we do with her?" He said, "Kill the seed before it's born. Destroy it before it's born!"
She says they kicked and punched her stomach until she miscarried. Two years later, with a change of government, Posada lost his job as intelligence chief but this didn't slow him down at all. During the mid-'70s Venezuela was booming and Posada Carriles was a busy man. He ran a private detective agency out of this house in east Caracas. The office became an important front in the clandestine war against Fidel Castro. Among his 36 employees were the two Venezuelans who planted the bomb on Flight 455, Hernan Ricardo and Freddy Lugo. This was the first time a civilian aircraft had been blown out of the sky in an act of mid-air terrorism. Within a few days Lugo and Ricardo were arrested in Trinidad, they confessed and led investigators straight to Posada.
JOSE PERTIERRA: We have the confessions of the two individuals who placed the bombs on the plane - Hernan Ricardo and Freddy Lugo - admitting that they did in fact do this, that they were CIA operatives, that they worked with Luis Posada Carriles in Caracas, that they placed telephone calls to Luis Posada Carriles the day of the downing of the plane, frantically looking for him to give him these coded words, "The bus has crashed and the dogs are dead."
POSADA, PRESS CONFERENCE, (Translation): I condemn that abominable act.
Posada has trouble speaking because he was shot in the face in a 1990 assassination attempt. At a press conference two years ago he said he had nothing to do with the bombing.
POSADA, PRESS CONFERENCE, (Translation): It's an act of terrorism that has been used by Castro throughout all these years in order to try and lie to link me to that event.
NINOSKA PEREZ CASTELLON, RADIO PRESENTER: You are not considered guilty because you are close to someone who is found guilty. In the United States someone is innocent until proven guilty.
Radio presenter Ninoska Perez Castellon is the voice of hardline Cuban exiles in Miami.
NINOSKA PEREZ CASTELLON: It's not what the Cuban Government says, it's not what the Venezuelan Government says. I mean, they have enough crimes on their hands to be accusing others. They call everybody a terrorist, they call me a terrorist, they call everybody a terrorist. And, you know, you don't do that unless you have the proof. That is the way that it's done in a democracy.
In fact there are dozens of declassified documents from the CIA and FBI which paint a damning picture of Posada. Until at least June 1976 he worked with the CIA, which was then headed by George Bush, the father of the current President. Back then there were serious concerns about Posada's links to organised crime, as this CIA report shows:
CIA REPORT: "Posada may be involved in smuggling cocaine from Colombia, through Venezuela to Miami, also in counterfeit US money in Venezuela."
Another CIA memo from three months before the bombing reveals foreknowledge of a planned attack.
CIA REPORT: "Possible plans of Cuban exile extremists to blow up a Cubana airliner."
But this information was never passed on to the Cuban authorities. This FBI document, written just two days after the bombing, shows that Posada and fellow anti-Castro militant Orlando Bosch were the first suspects.
FBI DOCUMENT: "The source all but admitted that Posada and Bosch had engineered the bombing of the airline."
Orlando Bosch and Posada Carriles were both arrested in Venezuela just days after the bombing. But although Bosch and Posada were held in jail for several years, they were never convicted.
ANN LOUISE BARDACH, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR: One of the judges, one of the military judges, actually, talked about the pressure that was being put on the government to not to charge them or to absolve them. The pressure was tremendous.
California-based journalist and author Ann Louise Bardach has written the definitive books on Cuba and the Cuban exiles in Miami. She's probably also the only person to have interviewed both Fidel Castro and Posada Carriles.
ANN LOUISE BARDACH: This is a painting that Luis Posada gave me when I was in Aruba.
Even though she was clearly charmed, Bardach says it's impossible to ignore the evidence of Posada's involvement in the bombing.
ANN LOUISE BARDACH: My personal estimation - and, again, I come from this from finding him quite personable, and I was because he's so personable you sort of want to believe his story. But I am sorry to say that the evidence that I have looked at extensively does not leave much wiggle room.
In 1985 Posada escaped from jail, fled Venezuela and went back to work for the Americans. He soon became a key player in the Iran-Contra affair, a covert operation to bring down Nicaragua's government. Ronald Regan was in the White House, and his Vice-President was none other than former CIA chief George Bush.
ANN LOUISE BARDACH: One thing about the Reagan-Bush administration is they had no illusions that the people who did dirty work had to be a little dirty themselves. And they wanted to run a secret war, they wanted people to do guerrilla actions and they knew they weren't going to get those people out of Harvard and Yale.
When the scandal broke, Colonel Oliver North famously started shredding the evidence, and Posada says he also did his bit covering up for the White House.
ANN LOUISE BARDACH: He said he ferried the American personnel out and that he destroyed very incriminating documents. And he said it to me suggesting that the US government owes him something for having done this.
In 1997, Posada reactivated his war on Cuba. Bombs began exploding in hotels and restaurants in the capital, Havana. In all, seven people were injured and a 32-year-old Italian tourist was killed. Later, in an interview that he may yet regret, he told journalist Ann Louise Bardach what he'd hoped to achieve.
ANN LOUISE BARDACH: The purpose of it, as he explained it to me, was not to really kill people and not to cause death and destruction but it was to scare off investment and tourism so that the embargo on Castro and Cuba would be total and bring down the government. He did not want to be implicated in the killing of a tourist. What he wanted was publicity for the bombings. He wanted people to say, "My God, it is dangerous down there. I can't go."
GIUSTINO DI CELMO, (Translation): Someone painted it for me a year ago.
One of the bombs killed Giustino di Celmo's son, Fabio. Di Celmo - an Italian - now lives in Havana.
GIUSTINO DI CELMO, (Translation): I see Fabio in every street of Havana. I see him all the time. To me, Fabio isn't dead. A good father has to stay here, and look after his son.
Fidel Castro made Giustino general manager of an Italian restaurant named after his son. Posada told Ann Louise Bardach that Fabio's death was regrettable.
ANN LOUISE BARDACH: He referred to him as the most unlucky guy in the world. He said, "It's too bad that somebody died but we can't stop because somebody died."
And he didn't stop. Posada's next target was Fidel Castro himself. In 2000, Castro was in Panama City for a summit and dramatically announced that Posada was there too, planning to assassinate him.
FIDEL CASTRO, (Translation): He is the infamous Luis Posada Carriles.
Cuban intelligence released surveillance footage of Posada in Panama City. It said the plan was to blow up the university auditorium where Castro was due to address Panamanian students. Posada was sentenced to eight years prison but released after only four.
ANN LOUISE BARDACH: What you hear in Miami is there was a considerable pay-off made. That is what you hear on both sides, of the left and right, is that it involved money, which would not be the first time in Panamanian politics that somebody got out of prison because somebody paid a bribe.
Posada has been immortalised on the Internet for his ability to escape justice. Dateline found this animation on the YouTube website. When he arrived in the United States in March 2005, Posada became a veritable hot potato for the Bush Administration.
JOSE PERTIERRA: Posada Carriles, by his own admission, has been a CIA operative for decades, and that he has a lot of secrets to tell. And some of those secrets take him directly back to President Bush's father.
But it seems he had very little to worry about, as Ann Louise Bardach discovered when she met with a high-level source at the FBI.
ANN LOUISE BARDACH: He said, "You'd better sit down." He said in August 2003 they closed the Posada case and then green-lighted it for destruction. Why did the FBI when it chose to do some house cleaning destroy the files and evidence of the most important case they had in that building?
REPORTER: Why?
ANN LOUISE BARDACH: It's Miami.
Dateline sent the FBI a detailed list of questions, but a spokesperson would only say it was standard procedure to dispose of evidence when a case is closed.
FBI REPORT: "We cannot provide details "of the Luis Posada Carriles investigation, past or present. There is a current investigation into Posada Carriles, however, I cannot comment any further."
Last month in Texas the immigration charges against Posada were dismissed by a Federal District Court Judge. Reports on Cuban and Venezuelan television created outrage. Camillo Rojo's father died on the plane brought down by Posada's henchmen.
CAMILLO ROJO, (Translation): Releasing Posada Carriles is like denying that my father is dead. Releasing Posada Carriles is like denying my 30 years of suffering because my father isn't here. It's denying all of that.
The US Government has announced it will appeal the decision to dismiss the charges against Posada. The Justice Department refused Dateline's request for an interview, but a spokesperson emailed this response:
US JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON: "The US Government takes seriously the allegations of terrorism levelled against Mr Posada. Mr Posada remains under investigation for his past activities."
Since being released Posada has been spending time in Miami's Little Havana where he knows he is safe.
MAN, (Translation): He walks freely around 8th Street. We look after him. Fidel Castro and his group want to turn this thing into a cheap melodrama but no one buys it, neither here nor in Cuba.
Dateline would like to have interviewed Posada Carriles, but he has been following his lawyer's advice to make no comment.
JOSE PERTIERRA: What makes his release so particularly dangerous is that Posada Carriles has never been the one to actually put bombs in buildings. He has directed others to do so. And now that he is free to roam the streets of Miami where so many of his fellow terrorists seem to be hiding, Posada Carriles is free to direct them to continue their terrorist ways. That's why so many people are concerned.
Two weeks ago the Venezuelan Government renewed its request for Posada's extradition, however the US Justice Department told Dateline extradition could not be granted because:
US JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON: "It was more likely than not that he would be tortured if he were so transferred."
Back in Havana, Posada's mock trial is reconvening for the verdict now outdoors, in direct earshot of the American diplomatic mission.
WOMAN, (Translation): This court declares Luis Faustino Clemente Posada Carriles and the Government of the United States of America guilty of authoring all of the terrorist acts examined.
Few people here have any faith in American justice, and even in Washington some congressmen are asking questions about America's relationship with Posada.
JOSE PERTIERRA: I've spoken to congressmen and their aides who are appalled at the way the White House has protected this terrorist. The scandalous thing here is the way the US Government, in the midst of a so-called war against terrorism, has coddled and protected this particular terrorist.
CAMILLO ROJO, (Translation): If Bin Laden were to be found in some country tomorrow and they released him like they released Posada Carriles, how would the American Government react? How would the American people react? They would be outraged. They would be upset, they would be offended.
Credits
Reporter/Camera
DAVID OSHEA
Editors
WAYNE LOVE
ROWAN TUCKER-EVANS
Subtitling
JORGE TURINI
Venezuela Fixer
EURIDICE LEDEZMA
Researcher
CATHY CAREY
Additional footage courtesy of Mundo Latino
Original music by Vicki Hansen
Production Company
SBS Dateline
At the old American Club in Havana a mock trial is under way. The accused has been the most wanted man in Latin America for over 30 years.
LT COL FRANCISCO ESTRADA, (Translation): We are going to prove, or try to prove, Luis Faustino Clemente Posada Carriles was the person in charge of implementing each and every one of these acts of terrorism against Cuba.
Luis Posada Carriles is being tried in absentia for multiple acts of terrorism, which have killed scores of people. Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Estrada from the Interior Ministry has spent the last 10 years investigating these crimes.
LT COL FRANCISCO ESTRADA, (Translation): Some day in the future, someone decent will take away his impunity and put Posada where he belongs - in the dock somewhere.
In 2005, the 77-year-old Posada was protesting his innocence in Texas.
LUIS FAUSTINO CLEMENTE POSADA CARRILES, NEWS FILE, (Translation): I want to emphasise that I had nothing to do with the act mentioned.
The governments of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua all want him to stand trial but when he turned up in the US with a false passport two years ago, he was only charged with immigration offences.
JOSE PERTIERRA, LAWYER FOR THE VENEZUELAN GOVERNMENT: If Posada was named Mohammad and if instead of being from Cuba, nationalised Venezuelan citizen was instead from Saudi Arabia, you can bet your bottom dollar that Posada Carriles would have been extradited quicker than you could sneeze. But Posada is not only a Cuban naturalised Venezuelan citizen but he is a CIA operative so it's a much more difficult case.
In a career spanning almost half a century, Luis Posada Carriles has dedicated his life to a crusade against communism, in particular Fidel Castro. And for much of that time he was working with the CIA.
JOSE PERIERRA: Posada Carriles is the most notorious terrorist in the western hemisphere. He is responsible for torture and murder in places as far away as Panama, Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Cuba. He has participated in terrorist acts since the early 1960s.
This Cuban documentary looks at the worst of the crimes blamed on Posada, the blowing up of a Cuban civilian aeroplane in Barbados in 1976. All 73 people on board were killed including the national youth fencing team. Nine days later more than a million Cubans gathered to pay tribute to the dead.
FIDEL CASTRO, NEWS FILE (Translation): We cannot say that the pain is divided among us. It is multiplied among us.
Until the September 11 attacks, the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 was described as the deadliest act of terrorism in the Americas. The pilot's last recorded words were a desperate plea for help.
SEAWELL, CUBANA 455: We have an explosion on board. We are descending immediately. We have a fire on board.
CONTROL: Flight 455, you are clear to land. Roger.
CUBANA 455: Close the door. Close the door! That's worse. Stick to the water, stick to the water.
PROSECUTOR, (Translation): Do you recognise the voices we just heard in the recording?
ODALYS PEREZ RODRIGUEZ, (Translation): Yes.
Odalys Perez Rodriguez was 10 years old when her father's last words were recorded.
ODALYS PEREZ RODRIGUEZ, (Translation): Throughout these years the pain my family and I have experienced has become a great sadness. A father's and a grandfather's love, I was unable to experience that.
JUDGE, (Translation): Thank you very much. You can sit down. Witness, Aimer Espinosa Gomez
The co-pilot also left a 10-year-old daughter behind.
AIMER ESPINOSA GOMEZ, (Translation): They have managed to cause my family great sadness. I have had but one single dream since 6 October 1976, I dream only of my father being found alive on some island, maybe as a castaway. I've always had these hopes that I know aren't real. But they've made me suffer for the last 30 years.
JOSE PERTIERRA: From the sea were recovered only 9 of the 73 bodies. And those nine bodies that were recovered were pieces of bodies. You can understand why the family members would want the person responsible for this, the mastermind of this gross murder to be tried for it.
LT COL FRANCISCO ESTRADA, (Translation): This is just the ongoing story of the US Government's protection of Posada Carriles. To charge him has a terrorist would be to charge themselves, as his bosses during all his activities against Cuba. That is all.
The Luis Posada Carriles story is also the story of US interference in Latin America. Way back in 1961, Posada was one of the anti-Castro exiles trained by the CIA to take part in a failed invasion of Cuba. But he never made it to the Bay of Pigs, instead he studied demolition, propaganda and intelligence, becoming second lieutenant in the US Army. Posada moved to Miami in 1964 and, by his own admission, continued to plot Castro's overthrow with the full support of the CIA. These old warhorses in Miami's Little Havana still fantasise about Castro's demise.
MAN, (Translation): Look, this is Fidel Castro and he died here.
To them Posada is not a terrorist but a freedom fighter.
MAN 2, (Translation): He wasn't responsible for the plane bombing up.
REPORTER, (Translation): Wasn't he?
MAN 2, (Translation): No.
REPORTER, (Translation): Is that what everyone here thinks?
MAN 2, (Translation): And in Cuba as well. Castro's Government knows it.
REPORTER, (Translation): What about those who say Posada Carriles is a terrorist?
MAN, (Translation): We have no answer to that. They can think what they like. All we care about is Fidel Castro. Fidel Castro and his brother and his little group, that's all.
In 1968 Posada moved from Miami to Caracas where he became chief of operations for Venezuelan intelligence. He has boasted about fighting a very dirty war against Cuban-backed communist guerrillas. In Caracas I managed to track down two women who were prisoners of Posada in 1972. Marlene Esquivel says that Posada - now calling himself Commissioner Basilio - even tortured her 3-week-old baby.
MARLENE ESQUIVEL, (Translation): He burned her several times with a cigarette. And Basilio himself covered the baby's nose. I couldn't... I kept moving her to stop him from... I was trying to but, yes, they tortured her a lot. They'd put a revolver here, and cock the trigger like this, and then they'd make a loud noise like a gunshot. That's how it was.
Eight months pregnant at the time, Marlene's sister Brenda says Posada, AKA Basilio, gave the order to kill her unborn child.
BRENDA, (Translation): They said to Basilio, "The lady is pregnant, she is due in days, what do we do with her?" He said, "Kill the seed before it's born. Destroy it before it's born!"
She says they kicked and punched her stomach until she miscarried. Two years later, with a change of government, Posada lost his job as intelligence chief but this didn't slow him down at all. During the mid-'70s Venezuela was booming and Posada Carriles was a busy man. He ran a private detective agency out of this house in east Caracas. The office became an important front in the clandestine war against Fidel Castro. Among his 36 employees were the two Venezuelans who planted the bomb on Flight 455, Hernan Ricardo and Freddy Lugo. This was the first time a civilian aircraft had been blown out of the sky in an act of mid-air terrorism. Within a few days Lugo and Ricardo were arrested in Trinidad, they confessed and led investigators straight to Posada.
JOSE PERTIERRA: We have the confessions of the two individuals who placed the bombs on the plane - Hernan Ricardo and Freddy Lugo - admitting that they did in fact do this, that they were CIA operatives, that they worked with Luis Posada Carriles in Caracas, that they placed telephone calls to Luis Posada Carriles the day of the downing of the plane, frantically looking for him to give him these coded words, "The bus has crashed and the dogs are dead."
POSADA, PRESS CONFERENCE, (Translation): I condemn that abominable act.
Posada has trouble speaking because he was shot in the face in a 1990 assassination attempt. At a press conference two years ago he said he had nothing to do with the bombing.
POSADA, PRESS CONFERENCE, (Translation): It's an act of terrorism that has been used by Castro throughout all these years in order to try and lie to link me to that event.
NINOSKA PEREZ CASTELLON, RADIO PRESENTER: You are not considered guilty because you are close to someone who is found guilty. In the United States someone is innocent until proven guilty.
Radio presenter Ninoska Perez Castellon is the voice of hardline Cuban exiles in Miami.
NINOSKA PEREZ CASTELLON: It's not what the Cuban Government says, it's not what the Venezuelan Government says. I mean, they have enough crimes on their hands to be accusing others. They call everybody a terrorist, they call me a terrorist, they call everybody a terrorist. And, you know, you don't do that unless you have the proof. That is the way that it's done in a democracy.
In fact there are dozens of declassified documents from the CIA and FBI which paint a damning picture of Posada. Until at least June 1976 he worked with the CIA, which was then headed by George Bush, the father of the current President. Back then there were serious concerns about Posada's links to organised crime, as this CIA report shows:
CIA REPORT: "Posada may be involved in smuggling cocaine from Colombia, through Venezuela to Miami, also in counterfeit US money in Venezuela."
Another CIA memo from three months before the bombing reveals foreknowledge of a planned attack.
CIA REPORT: "Possible plans of Cuban exile extremists to blow up a Cubana airliner."
But this information was never passed on to the Cuban authorities. This FBI document, written just two days after the bombing, shows that Posada and fellow anti-Castro militant Orlando Bosch were the first suspects.
FBI DOCUMENT: "The source all but admitted that Posada and Bosch had engineered the bombing of the airline."
Orlando Bosch and Posada Carriles were both arrested in Venezuela just days after the bombing. But although Bosch and Posada were held in jail for several years, they were never convicted.
ANN LOUISE BARDACH, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR: One of the judges, one of the military judges, actually, talked about the pressure that was being put on the government to not to charge them or to absolve them. The pressure was tremendous.
California-based journalist and author Ann Louise Bardach has written the definitive books on Cuba and the Cuban exiles in Miami. She's probably also the only person to have interviewed both Fidel Castro and Posada Carriles.
ANN LOUISE BARDACH: This is a painting that Luis Posada gave me when I was in Aruba.
Even though she was clearly charmed, Bardach says it's impossible to ignore the evidence of Posada's involvement in the bombing.
ANN LOUISE BARDACH: My personal estimation - and, again, I come from this from finding him quite personable, and I was because he's so personable you sort of want to believe his story. But I am sorry to say that the evidence that I have looked at extensively does not leave much wiggle room.
In 1985 Posada escaped from jail, fled Venezuela and went back to work for the Americans. He soon became a key player in the Iran-Contra affair, a covert operation to bring down Nicaragua's government. Ronald Regan was in the White House, and his Vice-President was none other than former CIA chief George Bush.
ANN LOUISE BARDACH: One thing about the Reagan-Bush administration is they had no illusions that the people who did dirty work had to be a little dirty themselves. And they wanted to run a secret war, they wanted people to do guerrilla actions and they knew they weren't going to get those people out of Harvard and Yale.
When the scandal broke, Colonel Oliver North famously started shredding the evidence, and Posada says he also did his bit covering up for the White House.
ANN LOUISE BARDACH: He said he ferried the American personnel out and that he destroyed very incriminating documents. And he said it to me suggesting that the US government owes him something for having done this.
In 1997, Posada reactivated his war on Cuba. Bombs began exploding in hotels and restaurants in the capital, Havana. In all, seven people were injured and a 32-year-old Italian tourist was killed. Later, in an interview that he may yet regret, he told journalist Ann Louise Bardach what he'd hoped to achieve.
ANN LOUISE BARDACH: The purpose of it, as he explained it to me, was not to really kill people and not to cause death and destruction but it was to scare off investment and tourism so that the embargo on Castro and Cuba would be total and bring down the government. He did not want to be implicated in the killing of a tourist. What he wanted was publicity for the bombings. He wanted people to say, "My God, it is dangerous down there. I can't go."
GIUSTINO DI CELMO, (Translation): Someone painted it for me a year ago.
One of the bombs killed Giustino di Celmo's son, Fabio. Di Celmo - an Italian - now lives in Havana.
GIUSTINO DI CELMO, (Translation): I see Fabio in every street of Havana. I see him all the time. To me, Fabio isn't dead. A good father has to stay here, and look after his son.
Fidel Castro made Giustino general manager of an Italian restaurant named after his son. Posada told Ann Louise Bardach that Fabio's death was regrettable.
ANN LOUISE BARDACH: He referred to him as the most unlucky guy in the world. He said, "It's too bad that somebody died but we can't stop because somebody died."
And he didn't stop. Posada's next target was Fidel Castro himself. In 2000, Castro was in Panama City for a summit and dramatically announced that Posada was there too, planning to assassinate him.
FIDEL CASTRO, (Translation): He is the infamous Luis Posada Carriles.
Cuban intelligence released surveillance footage of Posada in Panama City. It said the plan was to blow up the university auditorium where Castro was due to address Panamanian students. Posada was sentenced to eight years prison but released after only four.
ANN LOUISE BARDACH: What you hear in Miami is there was a considerable pay-off made. That is what you hear on both sides, of the left and right, is that it involved money, which would not be the first time in Panamanian politics that somebody got out of prison because somebody paid a bribe.
Posada has been immortalised on the Internet for his ability to escape justice. Dateline found this animation on the YouTube website. When he arrived in the United States in March 2005, Posada became a veritable hot potato for the Bush Administration.
JOSE PERTIERRA: Posada Carriles, by his own admission, has been a CIA operative for decades, and that he has a lot of secrets to tell. And some of those secrets take him directly back to President Bush's father.
But it seems he had very little to worry about, as Ann Louise Bardach discovered when she met with a high-level source at the FBI.
ANN LOUISE BARDACH: He said, "You'd better sit down." He said in August 2003 they closed the Posada case and then green-lighted it for destruction. Why did the FBI when it chose to do some house cleaning destroy the files and evidence of the most important case they had in that building?
REPORTER: Why?
ANN LOUISE BARDACH: It's Miami.
Dateline sent the FBI a detailed list of questions, but a spokesperson would only say it was standard procedure to dispose of evidence when a case is closed.
FBI REPORT: "We cannot provide details "of the Luis Posada Carriles investigation, past or present. There is a current investigation into Posada Carriles, however, I cannot comment any further."
Last month in Texas the immigration charges against Posada were dismissed by a Federal District Court Judge. Reports on Cuban and Venezuelan television created outrage. Camillo Rojo's father died on the plane brought down by Posada's henchmen.
CAMILLO ROJO, (Translation): Releasing Posada Carriles is like denying that my father is dead. Releasing Posada Carriles is like denying my 30 years of suffering because my father isn't here. It's denying all of that.
The US Government has announced it will appeal the decision to dismiss the charges against Posada. The Justice Department refused Dateline's request for an interview, but a spokesperson emailed this response:
US JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON: "The US Government takes seriously the allegations of terrorism levelled against Mr Posada. Mr Posada remains under investigation for his past activities."
Since being released Posada has been spending time in Miami's Little Havana where he knows he is safe.
MAN, (Translation): He walks freely around 8th Street. We look after him. Fidel Castro and his group want to turn this thing into a cheap melodrama but no one buys it, neither here nor in Cuba.
Dateline would like to have interviewed Posada Carriles, but he has been following his lawyer's advice to make no comment.
JOSE PERTIERRA: What makes his release so particularly dangerous is that Posada Carriles has never been the one to actually put bombs in buildings. He has directed others to do so. And now that he is free to roam the streets of Miami where so many of his fellow terrorists seem to be hiding, Posada Carriles is free to direct them to continue their terrorist ways. That's why so many people are concerned.
Two weeks ago the Venezuelan Government renewed its request for Posada's extradition, however the US Justice Department told Dateline extradition could not be granted because:
US JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON: "It was more likely than not that he would be tortured if he were so transferred."
Back in Havana, Posada's mock trial is reconvening for the verdict now outdoors, in direct earshot of the American diplomatic mission.
WOMAN, (Translation): This court declares Luis Faustino Clemente Posada Carriles and the Government of the United States of America guilty of authoring all of the terrorist acts examined.
Few people here have any faith in American justice, and even in Washington some congressmen are asking questions about America's relationship with Posada.
JOSE PERTIERRA: I've spoken to congressmen and their aides who are appalled at the way the White House has protected this terrorist. The scandalous thing here is the way the US Government, in the midst of a so-called war against terrorism, has coddled and protected this particular terrorist.
CAMILLO ROJO, (Translation): If Bin Laden were to be found in some country tomorrow and they released him like they released Posada Carriles, how would the American Government react? How would the American people react? They would be outraged. They would be upset, they would be offended.
Credits
Reporter/Camera
DAVID OSHEA
Editors
WAYNE LOVE
ROWAN TUCKER-EVANS
Subtitling
JORGE TURINI
Venezuela Fixer
EURIDICE LEDEZMA
Researcher
CATHY CAREY
Additional footage courtesy of Mundo Latino
Original music by Vicki Hansen
Production Company
SBS Dateline