UNITED STATES , March 19, 2007.- Terrorist Luis Posada Carriles will have another bail hearing before a US judge on April 2, after unsuccessfully seeking a definitive release from immigration authorities in February. Posada has been in jail for over a year and is charged with immigration fraud, but not for his alleged terrorist acts, including plotting the midair bombing of a Cuban Airliner in 1976 that killed 73 persons. Felipe Millan, Posada's attorney, said on Sunday that it is time for his client to obtain a release on bail, reported EFE, the Spanish news agency. In January 2007, Posada was transferred from the Immigration Detention Center in El Paso, Texas to a prison in Otero, New Mexico. He had been at the El Paso facility since May 2005 after his illegal entry to the US in March of that year. Posada, who escaped from prison in Venezuela while awaiting trial for the plane bombing, is also the subject of a formal extradition request filed by Venezuela with the US based on a long standing treaty. Thus far the Bush administration has refused to honor the agreement. The Cuban-born, naturalized Venezuelan has also boasted of orchestrating several bombings at Cuban hotels and tourist centers in the 1990s. Italian Fabio di Celmo was killed as a result of one such attack. Posada was in prison in Panama from 2000-2004 after being detained with an arsenal of weapons to be used in a plot to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro. He received a presidential pardon by ex-president Mireya Moscoso during her last days in office. (Cubaminrex- RHC)
|