Articles of El Paso Diary

The El Paso Diary is written by José Pertierra–an attorney who represents the government of Venezuela in its request for the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles. Pertierra´s journals describe the testimony, evidence, legal skirmishes, quirks and follies of this very historic trial that features for the first time the close collaboration of the United States government with Cuban authorities to prosecute an ex CIA agent who is one of the masterminds of the fifty-year old dirty war against Cuba.

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El Paso Diary: The Expert’s Ignorance and the 71 Objections From the Prosecution

Luis Posada Carriles, terrorista

El Paso Diary: Day 41 of the Posada Carriles Trial By José Pertierra The attorney for one of the convicted killers of Chilean diplomat, Orlando Letelier, testified today in El Paso on behalf of Luis Posada Carriles. José Dionisio Suárez Esquivel was convicted for conspiring to murder Letelier and his assistant Ronni Karpen Moffitt in

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El Paso Diary: The Witness From María Elvira, Live!

Letra-H

El Paso Diary: Day 39 of the Posada Carriles Trial By José Pertierra The María Elvira, Live! show came to El Paso this week. Luis Posada Carriles’ defense attorney turned the federal trial into a television talk show. The defense called Roberto Hernández del Llano as a star witness in an attempt to impeach the previous testimony

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El Paso Diary: The Sound and Fury of Otto Reich

Portada de Newsweek. Foto: Página web de Otto Reich www.ottoreich.com

The defendant’s name was barely mentioned in court in today. Instead, Judge Kathleen Cardone allowed the defense attorney to put the New York Times, its journalist Ann Louise Bardach and the Republic of Cuba on trial. Last week, after 11 grueling weeks and 23 witnesses, the Government rested. The prosecution’s final witness was Ann Louise Bardach. Now it is the defense’s turn to present its case-in-chief.

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El Paso Diary: Swinging Doors

Ann Louise Bardach

A pair of swinging doors separates the well of the court from the seating area for the press and invited guests. They swing four or five times every time someone pushes on them to pass through. This afternoon, after the defense attorney for Luis Posada Carriles finished his cross-examination of the journalist Ann Louise Bardach, he barreled through the doors with such force that they swung 12 times altogether. I know because I counted.

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El Paso Diary: Posada Tango

Posada y su abogado Arturo Hernández. Foto: EFE

It’s one thing for an attorney to zealously defend his client’s interests and quite another for him to embrace the defendant’s premises. An attorney is most effective, when he keeps a certain critical distance. Here in El Paso, Luis Posada Carriles’ attorney has adopted his client’s cause as his own—thus coloring his cross-examination to the point of silliness. His nutty questions about Cuba are pregnant with the false postulates of certain exiles in Little Havana who haven’t set foot on Cuban soil in more than five decades. It’s evident that the Miami defense attorney hasn’t done his research.

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El Paso Diary: Bardach in Wonderland

Ann Louise Bardach

Winter said its goodbyes to El Paso last night. Spring is here. But the equinox doesn’t bring flowers to El Paso: only dust, lots of dust. Forty-mile-an-hour winds blew through this border town this afternoon. Leaving the courthouse exhausted from an afternoon of cross-examination by Luis Posada Carriles’ attorney, Ann Louise Bardach confronted the storms from the Chihuahuan Desert that blew sand in her eyes as she leaned into the wind to return to her hotel. This is her fourth day on the stand. Bardach is now confident and self-assured as a witness. Her husband Bob gave her a kiss on the cheek, and with a brisk step she took her place, ready for battle.

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El Paso Diary: The Cross-Examination of Ann Louise Bardach

Ann Louise Bardach. Foto: Archivo de la familia Bardach

The lawyer representing Luis Posada Carriles has a reputation for aggressive and effective cross-examination. Today his job was to question one of the case’s star witnesses: Ann Louise Bardach. Anticipating the moment, some of the jurors leaned forward when Arturo Hernández approached the witness stand this morning. The African-American in the second row exchanged a knowing look with the Chicano on his right, who was rubbing his hands together with the look of a child about to devour an ice-cream cone.

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El Paso Diary: How Ann Louise Bardach Helped Win the Second Battle Over the Solo Fax

Ann Louise Bardach

By José Pertierra < Using the testimony of the journalist Ann Louise Bardach, the Government was able to introduce the Solo fax as evidence against Luis Posada Carriles. In the fax, the defendant alerts his co-conspirators to the money orders they would receive from New Jersey to carry out the bombing campaign in Havana in 1997.

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El Paso Diary: Tony Álvarez Links Posada Carriles to the Bombings in Havana

Luis Posada Carriles in Miami

Yesterday was a rough day. Today the witness reentered the courtroom with melancholy eyes, a slow step, and his shoulders sagging from the weight of his life’s burdens. But the Government did not have to force Tony Álvarez to come to El Paso to testify against Luis Posada Carriles. He offered of his own free will, just as he did 15 years ago, when he warned Guatemalan intelligence and the FBI that Posada Carriles was involved in a terrorist conspiracy to place bombs in the most famous hotels and restaurants in Cuba.

El Paso Diary: The Battle Over the Solo Fax

Luis Posada Carriles

Today the prosecution suffered a profound setback. Judge Kathleen Cardone ruled that a key document that links Luis Posada Carriles to the financing of a series of bombings in Havana in 1997 was inadmissible.