US Releases Terrorist From Jail

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Cuba has slammed the US over what it says is a double standard on terrorism after a US federal judge ordered the release of an anti-Castro activist convicted in the deadly downing of a Cuban jet.

"The court ruling is yet another confirmation of the George W Bush Administration's double standard on its alleged war on terror," the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma said.

The ruling by a federal judge in Texas does not necessarily mean former CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles, 79, will leave jail immediately, since he could be arrested by US immigration officials who have a deportation order for him.

On Friday he was ordered freed pending a hearing on immigration fraud charges.

The US judge ordered the Cuban-born Venezuelan national released on $US350,000 bail on condition that he remain confined to his Miami home and submit to "electronic monitoring," according to the text of the order by the Federal Court in El Paso, Texas.

Posada Carriles, a fierce opponent of communist Cuban leader Fidel Castro, was accused of masterminding the downing of a Cuban jet off Barbados in 1976 in which 73 people were killed.

He was detained in Venezuela in 1976 and convicted in the case, but fled prison in 1985.

He was also sentenced to eight years' jail in Panama in a bomb plot to assassinate Castro during an Ibero-American summit there in 2000, but was pardoned by then outgoing President Mireya Moscoso.

"The international community is demanding justice. And Venezuela is pressing on in its bid to have him extradited," the Cuban statement in Granma added.

Posada Carriles was detained by US immigration officials in May 2005 for entering the United States illegally.


 

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