HAVANA, Cuba (AFP): Victims' relatives on Friday staged a vigil outside the US mission in Havana, expressing outrage over the US release of ex-CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles, who is blamed for the deadly 1976 downing of a Cuban airliner.
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| Cubans hold portraits of those Cuban dead in the plane attacked by anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles, during a demonstration in front of the US Interest Section building. AFP PHOTO |
Surrounded by black flags and holding up photographs of the 73 people killed in the attack, protesters demanded that Posada Carriles be tried as a terrorist and not just on minor immigration charges.
About 100,000 people have demonstrated across Cuba since Posada Carilles was freed on bail Thursday.
Cuba's communist authorities claim the White House orchestrated the release to buy Posada Carriles' silence over violent covert operations in Latin America during his days on the CIA's payroll.
Cubans who lost relatives in the 1976 bombing also blamed President George W. Bush's administration for letting Posada Carriles go free, even though he was convicted in Venezuela of masterminding the attack.
"The Bush administration is responsible for the liberation and protection of the terrorist Posada Carriles," they said in a statement read out during the vigil, held under a sea of black flags put up last year to symbolize the victims of violent acts against Cuba.
A fierce opponent of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Posada Carriles was released from jail in Texas on a 350,000-dollar bond pending the May 11 start of his trial on immigration charges, and immediately flew to his wife's home in Miami.
He was convicted in Venezuela in 1976 of masterminding the downing of the Cuban jet off Barbados, but escaped from prison in 1985.
He was sentenced to eight years' jail in Panama in a bomb plot to assassinate Castro during an Ibero-American summit in 2000, and was pardoned four years later.
He was detained by US immigration officials in May 2005 for entering the United States illegally. US authorities have refused to extradite him to Cuba or Venezuela, expressing fears he might be tortured.
"We are outraged that this killer, protected by US authorities, is allowed to return to Miami with full security and guarantees," protesters said at the Havana vigil, which was scheduled to continue until Monday.
The Cuban government said the release insulted victims' relatives. "It is also an insult against the people of the United States" at a time when Washington claims to be waging a 'war on terror,'" the communist authorities said in a statement.
"The full responsibility for the release of this terrorist and for its consequences falls directly upon the US government, and particularly the president of that country," the statement said.
Venezuela also condemned the court's decision, with Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro saying in reference to Washington that "anyone who protects a terrorist is a terrorist."
He reiterated the demand Posada Carriles be extradited to Venezuela. |
