AP News, April 25th, 2007
Venezuela and Cuba on Wednesday asked a U.N. counterterrorism committee to investigate the release from a U.S. jail of a Cuban militant who is wanted in Venezuela on charges of plotting a 1976 airliner bombing that killed 73 people.
The two countries made the request in a letter to Panamanian Ambassador Alberto Arias, the committee's chairman, saying it was urgent the case be considered as soon as possible following the release last week on bail of 79-year-old former CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles.
"This international terrorist's release constitutes a clear violation of the Security Council resolutions on counter-terrorism," Venezuela and Cuba said in the letter.
Venezuela's acting ambassador Aura Mahuampi Rodriguez de Ortiz and Cuban Ambassador Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz also said Posada's release on bail, while awaiting trial on charges of lying to U.S. immigration authorities, demonstrates the U.S. government's "complicity and full responsibility."
Last week, an appeals court in New Orleans rejected the federal government's bid to keep Posada behind bars until his trial. He was released Thursday from a New Mexico jail after he posted $250,000 bond and his family put up another $100,000.
He must wear an electronic monitoring device while under house arrest at his wife's home in Miami pending his May 11 trial on immigration fraud charges.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has accused the U.S. of protecting a terrorist instead of handing him over to be tried. Venezuela made an extradition request to the U.S. in 2005.
Venezuelan authorities accuse Posada, a militant opponent of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, of plotting the 1976 bombing of the Cubana Airlines jet while living in the Venezuela. Posada, who was born in Cuba and is a naturalized Venezuelan citizen, has denied involvement.
Posada, a U.S. Army soldier who had a role in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, has been jailed in the United States since May 2005, when he admitted sneaking into the country illegally from Mexico.
In their letter, Cuba and Venezuela accuse the U.S. of violating a U.N. resolution approved after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks which says U.N. member states should "ensure that anyone who has participated in the financing, planning, preparation or perpetration of terrorist acts ... is brought to justice."
