May 12, 2007

Who is Charlie Hill and why should you care?

The fallout from a judge dismissing immigration fraud charges against alleged terrorist Luis Posada Carriles was predictable. Taking its cues from the castro, inc. publicity machine, the MSM and the liberal blogosphere is lamenting the fact that Posada finally received something resembling due process. But all you hear from them is how hypocritical the US (and particularly the Bush administration) is for "harboring a terrorist" despite the fact that the Bush administration can't force a judge to rule in any particular way and, in fact, pulled out all the stops to throw the book at Posada Carriles for the relatively minor immigration charges because it has never been able to scrape together enough evidence to bring a terrorism charge against him. Which brings us to Charlie Hill. [Excerpts rearranged for clarity.]

Charlie Hill, an accused murderer and admitted hijacker, has lived 36 years as a fugitive of American justice. With the Cuban government providing him an offshore safe haven, he has managed to live a life beyond the reach of the F.B.I.

Mr. Hill wound up in Cuba in 1971 after he and two other members of a group called the Republic of New Afrika, were stopped by a state trooper outside of Albuquerque, while transporting arms and explosives. One of them, Mr. Hill does not say who, shot the trooper, Robert Rosenbloom, in the throat.

The trio, all of them in their 20s, then forced their way into the Albuquerque airport and hijacked a T.W.A. jet. They left behind their dream of creating a separate nation for American blacks.

Both of Mr. Hill’s co-defendants have died in Cuba: Ralph Goodwin drowned years ago at a beach outside Havana; Michael Finney succumbed to throat cancer in 2005.

Mr. Hill said he has resigned himself to the fact that he will never see the United States again.

“I’m not ever going to stroll down Broadway,” he said. “If I make any stroll in the States, it will be in prison. That’s a reality.”

...the American government puts the number of people wanted by its law enforcement agencies hiding out in Cuba at about 70....

They include the former Joanne Chesimard, a leader of the Black Liberation Army, who is one of the most notorious of the fugitives. She has a $1 million bounty on her head in the killing of a New Jersey state trooper in 1973. She once listed her number in the Havana phone book, under her new name, Assata Shakur, but she now lives out of view and under the protection of Cuban authorities.

Mr. Castro himself stuck up for Ms. Shakur in 2005, accusing Washington of portraying her “as a terrorist, something that was an injustice, a brutality, an infamous lie.”

...Guillermo Morales, who was arrested on bomb-making charges in 1978 after he accidentally blew off all but one of his fingers in his Queens apartment.

Mr. Morales escaped from custody in New York in 1979 and made his way to Mexico. Authorities there allowed him to go to Cuba, where he is still spotted around Havana.

So what would drive people to clamor for the deportation of Posada Carriles who has already spent a good portion of his adult life behind bars for crimes he has never been convicted of (and one he was convicted of) when Cuba is protecting cop killers and hijackers? Plain and simple these people hate America, which means anything America does is automatically wrong and anything America's enemies do against America is automatically right. And even if they acknowledge privately that it's not right, they aren't going to make a stink about it because it hurts their arguments. That's what makes most liberals intellectually dishonest. That's why fidel's biggest weapon is the trojan horse of the overwhelmingly liberal media and academic establishment that we have permitted to destroy this country from the inside out.

Posted by Henry Louis Gomez at May 12, 2007 10:01 AM |

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Comments

Of all that may occur in the wake of Castro's death, the Times frets over the fate of some 60s radicals. Let's hope that a new democratic Cuban government will do the right thing and extradite these criminals to the U.S. Lord knows they'll have their hands full prosecuting homegrown criminals like Ricardo Alarcon.

Posted by: Pelkabo [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 12, 2007 01:04 PM

There is also William Lee Brent, who wrote a book about his mis-adventures. He was a Black Panther who hijacked a plane to Cuba. He spent some time in jail, because they asked him "who he knew in Cuba". He said nobody, not knowing that there were other Black Panthers there, who said they knew him.

Posted by: daniel_in_garanhuns [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 12, 2007 01:58 PM

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