Cuba News and Information

Immigration & Customs Enforcement agents have searched the office of a longtime friend of Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles. 

Published: Sunday, November 20, 2005

Madeline Baro Diaz

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

An ICE spokeswoman confirmed the agency executed a search warrant on developer Santiago Alvarez’ Hialeah office in their investigation, but declined to comment further.

Matthew Archambeault, an attorney for Posada, said he did not know if the search had anything to do with Posada. He referred phone calls to Kendall Coffey, Alvarez’s attorney. Neither Alvarez nor Coffey could be reached for comment Friday.

Posada has been accused of several violent attacks against Cuba over the years. He escaped from a Venezuelan prison while awaiting trial on charges that he took part in the Oct. 6, 1976, bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people.

Posada, a one-time permanent US resident, sneaked into the United States earlier this year after years of living in hiding and is in the custody of immigration officials. In September, an immigration judge ruled that Posada could not be deported to his native Cuba, where he is accused in a string of bombings of Havana hotels, or Venezuela, where he faces charges in the airliner attack.

Alvarez has served as Posada’s spokesman and arranged a news conference in which the militant officially surfaced and declared his innocence in the airliner bombing.

Also on Friday, a group from Cuba identifying itself as the relatives of the airliner victims took out a full page advertisement in The New York Times, referring to Posada as a “dangerous terrorist,” and appealed to Americans to keep Posada from getting “protection and impunity” in the United States.

“As with yourselves, the terrorists stole from us the most precious thing in our lives, our loved ones,” the ad, which referred to the 9/11 attacks, read.

Madeline Baro Diaz