Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Venezuela promises: No Cuba for Posada

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela pressed its demand Wednesday for the United States to extradite a Cuban exile accused in a 1976 airliner bombing and promised not to send the suspect on to Cuba.

Venezuela wants to try Luis Posada Carriles, 77, in the attack that killed 73 people when the Cuban airliner exploded after departing from Caracas. U.S. immigration authorities detained him Tuesday in Miami, where he was living while awaiting a decision on his request for political asylum.

Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said the U.S. government would be accused of having a double standard when it comes to fighting terrorism if it refuses to surrender him to Venezuelan authorities.

"It would be condemned around the world," Rangel said. "It seems that for some there is a good terrorism and a bad terrorism."

Since escaping from a Venezuelan prison in 1985, Posada - who at one point was on the CIA payroll - has spent most of the time moving stealthily from country to country, thereby avoiding being tried for masterminding the bombing.

Rangel said if extradited, Posada would face justice in Venezuela and would not be sent to Cuba.

U.S. officials have said they would not hand over those suspected of crimes to any country that would then turn them over to the government of Fidel Castro, Chavez's close ally.

But Castro has repeatedly ruled out trying to extradite Posada, saying he should be tried in Venezuela or by an international court.

Rangel called the idea that Posada could be sent to Cuba "an excuse, a subterfuge, that they are using precisely in order to not approve the extradition."

Rangel cited a 1922 treaty between the U.S. and Venezuela and said the United States is obliged to extradite Posada, who he maintains is linked to "horrendous criminal acts."

Posada, a naturalized Venezuelan citizen, escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985 while awaiting a prosecutor's appeal of his second acquittal in the Cubana Airlines bombing.

Posada has denied involvement in the bombing, but recently declassified CIA and FBI documents quoted informants linking him to planning meetings for the bombing. U.S. documents indicate he was on the CIA's payroll until months before the 1976 bombing.

[Last modified May 19, 2005, 00:44:07]