Book: Jeb Bush helped free Cuban terrorists

December 3 2002
By Duncan Campbell
Los Angeles

President George Bush's brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, has been instrumental in securing the release from prison of Cuban exiles convicted of terrorist offences, according to a new book.

The Bush family has also accommodated the demands of hardline Cuban exiles in exchange for electoral and financial support, the book suggests.

Last year, after September 11, while the Justice Department announced a sweep of terrorist suspects, convicted Cubans were being released from jails with the consent of the Bush administration, according to the book, Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana, by Ann Louise Bardach, an award-winning investigative journalist.

The Bush family connections go back to 1984 when Jeb Bush began an association with Camilo Padreda, a former intelligence officer with the Batista dictatorship overthrown by Fidel Castro.

Mr Padreda had earlier been indicted on a $US500,000 ($A900,000) embezzlement charge along with a fellow exile, Hernandez Cartaya, but the charges were dropped, reportedly after the CIA said that Mr Cartaya had worked for them. Mr Padreda later pleaded guilty to defrauding the Housing and Urban Development Department of millions of dollars during the 1980s.

The President's younger brother was also on the payroll in the 1980s of the prominent Cuban exile Miguel Recarey, who had earlier assisted the CIA in attempts to assassinate President Castro.

Mr Recarey, who ran International Medical Centres, employed Jeb Bush as a real estate consultant and paid him $75,000 for finding the company a new location, although it never moved. Jeb Bush did, however, lobby the Reagan-Bush administration successfully on behalf of Mr Recarey and IMC.

Most controversially, at the request of Jeb, Mr Bush senior intervened to release the convicted Cuban terrorist Orlando Bosch from prison and then granted him US residency.

According to the Justice Department in George Bush senior's administration, Bosch had participated in more than 30 terrorist acts. He was also implicated in the blowing up of a Cuban plane flying to Havana from Venezuela in 1976; all 73 on board were killed.

Other Cuban exiles involved in terrorist acts, Jose Dionisio Suarez and Virgilio Paz Romero, who carried out the 1976 assassination of the Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier in Washington, have been released by the present Bush administration.

- Guardian