Cuba Condemns U.S. Release of Alleged Plane Bomber

 Cuba accused the U.S. government on Friday of protecting an anti-Castro exile blamed for the bombing of a Cuban airliner 30 years ago, blasts in Havana hotels and plots to kill Fidel Castro.

The 79-year-old Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative, was freed on bail on Thursday from a U.S. prison in New Mexico pending trial on immigration charges.

His release outraged Cubans who view him as a terrorist who is protected by the United States for opposing communism.

Relatives of the 73 passengers ald crew who died in the downing of the DC-8 jet off Barbados in 1976 protested opposite the American diplomatic mission in Havana on Friday morning, demanding justice and his extradition to Venezuela.

The protesters held photos of their dead as they stood under 138 black flags in memory of victims of terrorism.

"The United States is freeing the biggest terrorist in the Western hemisphere who took our parents lives," said Haymel Espinosa, daughter of the downed plane's co-pilot.

A day earlier, some 100,000 Cubans protested in the eastern town of Bayamo against Posada Carriles' release.

Havana said his freeing insulted the Cuban nation and undermined the credibility of U.S. President George W. Bush's declared war on terrorism.

By refusing to prosecute Posada Carriles on charges of terrorism, the U.S. government was buying his silence for crimes committed when he worked for the CIA, a statement published by the Communist Party newspaper said.

"The freeing of the terrorist was arranged by the White House as compensation ... so that he does not tell the countless secrets he has about him time as an agent of the U.S. special services," the statement said.

Posada Carriles' release was granted by U.S. Judge Kathleen Cardone, and ended a long fight by the U.S. government to keep him behind bars.

Cuba accuses Posada Carriles of planning a wave of bomb blasts in Havana hotels in 1997 that killed an Italian tourist and of plotting to blow up Castro during a presidential summit in Panama in 2000. He was arrested and later pardoned by Panama.

Posada Carriles, trained by the CIA for the disastrous U.S.-backed invasion to topple Castro at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, was involved in the illegal Iran-Contra operation to supply arms to right-wing guerrillas in Nicaragua, Granma said.

Venezuela has requested his extradition to stand trial on charges he masterminded the suitcase bombing of the Cubana airliner from Caracas, where he ran a private detective company. The Cuba-born naturalized Venezuelan citizen was arrested in Caracas in connection with the bombing but escaped from a high-security prison in 1985.

Posada Carriles had been in U.S. custody since May 2005 after he entered the United States illegally to seek asylum. In January, he was indicted on seven immigration-fraud charges.

Posada Carriles traveled to Florida on a private jet after posting bail totaling $350,000 to get out of prison. He will be under house arrest at his wife's Miami home and must wear an electronic monitoring device until his May 11 trial.

(Reuters)