Havana, June 28 (AIN) Additional evidence of the intricate and long terrorist background of Luis Posada Carriles and his many years of relations with the CIA were exposed on Monday's edition of the Cuban radio and television program The Round Table.

Posada was part of Operation 40, a CIA sponsored plan that in the early 1960s brought together paid assassins like Orlando Bosch, Guillermo Veciana and drug traffickers, who were trained by the Agency to commit crimes wherever ordered to "solve the Cuban problem."

Operation 40 was the embryo of terrorism against Cuba. Many years after its demise, its participants are still inclined to use the same tactics they used in the 60´s. The panelists noted that these perpetrators of crimes against Cuba feel protected because they know many things that could damage the image of politicians who were their accomplices and now hold high ranking positions in the US government. For this reason people like Orlando Bosch and Posada Carriles enjoy impunity, commented the panelists.

Bosch was given a free ride in the United States by Bush Sr. with a pardon in 1990, and Posada, wanted in Venezuela for the in-flight bombing of a Cubana Airlines DC-8, is requesting asylum from the Bush Jr. administration.

Nonetheless, the international outcry demanding the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles is on the rise, and an increasing number of efforts are being undertaken in many nations around the world to see justice served. A case in point is a recent visit by three Mexican lawmakers to the US Congress, where they held
talks with several legislators and the media to explain their views on the notorious terrorist.

In Venezuela, the vice president of the parliament, Ricardo Gutierrez, reiterated that Washington's reply to the extradition request on Luis Posada Carriles will determine the future of relations between the two countries.

Posada escaped from a Caracas jail in 1985 while awaiting trial for the plane sabotage that took 73 lives. He is also wanted for the torture and murder of several persons during the period he worked as "Comisario Basilio" for the Venezuelan secret police in the 1970s.

The journalists participating on the Round Table noted that, in Mexico, at long last an investigation into Posada's passing through its territory on route to the US has been launched.

In his long record of plots against Cuba, Posada had previously boasted of organizing a string of 1997 hotel bombings in Havana. Livio and Tisiana Di Celmo, the brother and sister of Fabio Di Celmo, the young Italian killed in one of those actions, were interviewed on the program.

Livio stressed that the demand for the extradition of Posada should not be separated from the international demand to free the Cuban Five, currently serving stiff prison terms in the United States for having dedicated themselves to preventing terrorist attacks against the island.