Deportation hearing starts for former CIA operative News
Deportation hearing starts for former CIA operative

[JURIST] An immigration judge held a hearing Monday to determine if former anti-Castro CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles [Wikipedia profile] should be granted asylum to the US after illegally entering through Mexico [JURIST report] earlier this year. Venezuelan officials have requested the Cuban citizen's extradition to their country [JURIST report] so that he can face charges regarding his alleged involvement in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban plane. Also at issue in Carriles' immigration hearing is whether his role in the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion [Wikipedia backgrounder] of Cuba to overthrow Fidel Castro [Wikipedia profile] was a terrorist act. Carriles denies involvement, despite CIA documents which indicate he was trained to participate. AP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Ku Klux Klan founded

The US hate group known as the Ku Klux Klan was founded on December 24, 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee as a reaction to reconstruction efforts following the Union victory in the American Civil War. The group would later become notorious for its attacks on Black Americans, being targeted by the Enforcement Act of 1871, which imposed civil and criminal liability for deprivation of constitutional rights. Read the Enforcement Act of 1871.  

Hamid Karzai born

On December 24, 1957, Hamid Karzai was born in Karz, Afghanistan. He would go on to become in 2004 his country's first elected president after the end of Taliban rule in 2001.