• Submitted by: manso
• Politics and Government
• 01 / 20 / 2011

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Cuban exile militant Luis Posada Carriles' responses on his immigration application raised concerns, a U.S. official testified in court.

Posada was arrested in 2002 on charges of plotting to assassinate Fidel Castro during a visit to the Central American country but convicted of a lesser charge.

He received a controversial presidential pardon in 2004.

``Those definitely raised concerns,'' Bolanos testified Wednesday at Posada's trial on charges that he lied under oath at his asylum and naturalization hearings in 2005 and 2006.

Bolanos, an official of the Department of Homeland Security's Citizen and Immigration Services who specialized in cases with ``national security concerns,'' conducted Posada's citizenship hearings.

His sworn testimony to Bolanos, as well as testimony during his asylum hearings, are at the root of the 11 charges against the 82-year-old Posada, a CIA-trained expert in explosives.

But segments of the recordings of the interviews played for the jury showed some confusion and outright errors as Bolanos, a translator and Posada went back and forth between English and Spanish.

At one point no one corrected Posada when he said it was ``Truman'' who tried to overthrow Fidel Castro in the 1960s.

At another, the written transcript had the wrong English date for a year that Posada had mentioned.

Bolanos' copy of Posada's N400, which she marked up in red ink as she interviewed him, showed 83 ``corrections'' -- clarifications or changes to Posada's sworn answers.

Defense lawyer Arturo V. Hernandez made it clear he intends to challenge the transcriptions and translations when he cross-examines Bolanos.

He hopes to cast doubt about whether Posada knowingly lied under oath.

``This is a perjury case,'' Hernandez said, adding that he will also introduce his own versions of the transcriptions and translations of the Posada testimonies, which differ from the prosecution's.

Bolanos also testified that Posada did not appear to have had any problems understanding English during his testimony.

Hernandez has argued Posada was not fluent enough to have fully understood all the questions. The recordings revealed he had some occasional problems with the language.

Posada applied for citizenship after he sneaked into the United States in 2005.

His application was based on his U.S. army service at a time when veterans of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba were briefly commissioned in the military.

The 11 charges against Posada include lying about how he entered the U.S., denying his role in nine bombings of Cuban tourist spots in 1997 that killed one Italian man and wounded a dozen other people, and his denial that he had a Guatemalan passport.

Source: www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/20/2024531/