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Cuba Wants Terrorist Posada Carriles Extradited or TriedReprinted from Daily Granma PANAMA, November 21 (PL).— "The US government should either extradite terrorist Luis Posada Carriles to Venezuela or try him for his crimes," said Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban parliament, in a press conference Tuesday in Panama. Alarcon pointed out that Posada Carriles has a trial pending in Caracas for his lead role in the in-flight bombing of a Cuban commercial airliner in 1976 killing all 73 persons aboard. Posada escaped from a Venezuelan prison while awaiting trial in 1985. His long record also includes bombings of Cuban hotels in the 1990s and several assassination attempts against Cuban President Fidel Castro. Alarcon said the type of crime involved in the plane sabotage is well described in an international agreement signed in Montreal in 1971, regarding illegal acts against civil-aviation security. He noted that article seven of the accord establishes that if the government of the country where the criminal is located "does not proceed to extradition, it shall submit the case without exception to its competent authorities to try the person involved, independent of whether the crime was committed there or not." Posada Carriles is currently being detained in the US for a mere immigration infraction. Alarcon said that a federal judge has granted the White House 90-days, until February 1, to present a written report of the reasons why the terrorist should not be released. According to US law, a person cannot be held indefinitely for illegally entering the country (the only charge against Posada Carriles) unless he/she is declared a terrorist or a threat to national security, explained Alarcon. It will soon be two years since Posada Carriles illegally entered the United States, "but Washington continues to ignore the extradition request from Venezuela and refuses to classify the Cuban-born, naturalized Venezuelan as a terrorist," said Alarcon. The chairman of the Cuban parliament pointed to the fact that a Panamanian court declared Posada Carriles a danger to the security of the country after he was arrested for plotting to assassinate Fidel Castro during the 10th Ibero-American Summit held in Panama in 2000. |
Cuba exige justicia en caso del terrorista
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