Venezuela-US on Thin Ice over Posada Carriles

Caracas, May 23 (Prensa Latina) Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez asserted that diplomatic relations with the United States will be affected if Cuban born Luis Posada Carriles is not extradited to Venezuela for the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976.

"We will have to make some decisions if the US does not respect the agreement signed in 1922," Chavez said in his program "Alo Presidente" on Sunday.

Venezuela says the CIA-trained expert on demolitions must stand trial over the 1976 bombing of a Cuban plane that killed 73 people.

Posada Carriles planned and executed the bombing using two Venezuelan paid agents from Caracas. He was arrested and stood trial. He was in jail awaiting a trial on appeal when he broke away from a minor security prison in 1985.

He has also been accused of torturing and ordering the killing of activists of Venezuelan leftist organizations in the early 70´s when he headed the unit of special operations of Venezuela´s secret police.

In claiming Washington would be guilty of protecting international terrorism if it refused extradition, Chavez insisted that "if they dont extradite him in the time allowed in our agreement, we will review our relations with the United States."

He added Caracas would decide "if it worth having an embassy in the United States, wasting money, or for the United States to have an embassy here".

"It is difficult, very difficult," he continued, "to maintain ties with a government that so shamelessly hides and protects international terrorism."

Posada Carriles sneacked into American territory from Mexico in March and settled in Miami, where US authorities under mounting international pressure detained him last week. He has a hearing scheduled in El Paso, Texas, on June 13 over illegal entry.

Besides the mid-air bombing of the Cuban plane, he´s accused of participating in the assassination of former Chilean foreign minister Orlando Letelier and masterminding from El Salvador a series of hotel bomb attacks in Havana in 1997 in which an Italian businessman got killed.

He arrested in Panama City with another three Cuban-American with a long history of involvement in terror attacks against Cuba for attempting against the life of President Fidel Castro.

The Venezuelan leader expressed his concern over the first answer of the US government of George W. Bush about the whereabouts of terrorist Posada Carriles. The US government failed to tell the truth and later could not hide him anymore.

Chavez recalled that Posada tortured, murdered and made people disappear in Venezuela, where he founded the terrorist "Political Police."