- EL PASO, Texas: In a trial that took 11 weeks and featured 24 witnesses, federal prosecutors meticulously presented their case against an elderly ex-CIA agent from Cuba accused of lying during immigration hearings.
Yet it took a Texas jury barely three hours Friday to exonerate 83-year-old Luis Posada Carriles of perjury, immigration fraud and obstruction.
Posada spent much of his life working to destabilize communist governments in Latin America, often with Washington’s support, and is a longtime nemesis of ex-Cuban President Fidel Castro.
Posada says he hopes to eventually return to Cuba’s beaches.
Faced with international pressure and its own stated hard-line stance against terrorism, the US government has been seeking to convict Posada for years. But its cases against him have relied, rather ironically, on charging a former spy with lying.