Belafonte Demands Justice in Posada Case

Havana, Apr 28 (Prensa Latina) US singer-actor Harry Belafonte joined more than 4,000 world-renowned personalities who signed a call demanding justice in the case of notorious criminal Luis Posada Carriles.

The document, published on April 16 by the Network of Networks in Defense of Humankind and signed by the prominent musical and film producer, is entitled "Luis Posada Carriles Must Be Tried for His Crimes".

The text says that the Cuban-born terrorist "was accused and tried in Venezuela for the sabotage of a civilian airplane in 1976 killing 73 people." "After escaping from a Venezuelan prison in 1982," the document adds, "he worked for the CIA in the Iran-Contras operation and in the implementation of the genocidal Condor Plan", aimed at exterminating Latin American political opponents.

In 1997, Posada Carriles organized a series of terrorist attacks on Havana hotels, killing young Italian tourist Fabio di Celmo.

The declaration says that "in March 2005, Posada Carriles entered the United States illegally. Only after repeated public denunciations revealing the presence of the notorious criminal on US territory, the government of President George W. Bush arrested him and indicted him." However, he was charged "on migratory crimes and false testimony, without the slightest allusion to terrorism," says the document, adding that under pressure from South Florida-based Cuban extremists, Washington"s has given absolute proof of its double standard against terrorism.

The document has been signed by Peace Nobel prizewinners Adolfo Perez Esquivel and Rigoberta Menchu, Literature Nobel laureates Nadine Gordimer and Harold Pinter, and Physics Nobel prizewinner Zhores Alfiorov.

Well-known artists like Danny Glover, Maria Rojo and Walter Salles also signed the declaration.