Declassified US files have revealed an anti-communist Cuban, who has applied for asylum in the United States but is wanted by Venezuela for the bombing of a Cuban airliner 29 years ago, spent years on the CIA payroll. CIA and FBI files, published by George Washington University's National Security Archive, revealed US investigators believed Luis Posada Carriles was involved in the 1976 bombing plot in Venezuela of the Cubana Airlines jet in which 73 passengers died, including teenage members of a Cuban fencing team. Posada's application for asylum has presented the US Government with a dilemma of how to reconcile its traditional sympathy for politically powerful Cuban exiles, and its firm stand after September 11, 2001, against terrorism suspects.
Venezuela, now a close ally of communist Cuba, plans to ask for his extradition and Cuban President Fidel Castro has used his presence in Miami to hammer away at what he calls US hypocrisy in the war on terrorism. "We going to step up our demands for extradition," Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel told reporters last week. "I hope Mr Bush will take note of his own anti-terrorism policies and hand over Posada Carriles." |