From
ABC News:
Posada's application for asylum has presented the US Government with a dilemma of how to reconcile its traditional sympathy for politically powerful Cuban exiles, and its firm stand after September 11, 2001, against terrorism suspects.
That's some dilemna, isn't it?
Let's see, the guy murdered 73 innocent passengers on an airliner, injured at least 11 more in hotel bombings, supplied terrorist guerillas with weapons in Nicaragua, tried to supply Napalm to another group in Guatemala, and tried to assasinate Castro (see extended entry).
But, he doesn't like Communists! So, maybe he's not really a terrorist, but just a freedom fighter!
More quotes from ABC:
Declassified US files have revealed an anti-communist Cuban, who has applied for asylum in the United States but is wanted by Venezuela for the bombing of a Cuban airliner 29 years ago, spent years on the CIA payroll.
CIA and FBI files, published by George Washington University's National Security Archive, revealed US investigators believed Luis Posada Carriles was involved in the 1976 bombing plot in Venezuela of the Cubana Airlines jet in which 73 passengers died, including teenage members of a Cuban fencing team.
Posada's application for asylum has presented the US Government with a dilemma of how to reconcile its traditional sympathy for politically powerful Cuban exiles, and its firm stand after September 11, 2001, against terrorism suspects.
In an FBI report a day after the Cubana bombing, the agency said a source "all but admitted that Posada and [Miami doctor Orlando] Bosch had engineered the bombing of the airline".
Another FBI report cited a confidential source as saying that Posada was one of several people who met at least twice at the Anauco Hilton in Caracas to plot the attack.
"The declassified record leaves no doubt that Posada has been one of the world's most unremitting purveyors of terrorist violence," Mr Kornbluh said in a statement.
In addition to linking Posada to the airline bombing, the documents showed he went to El Salvador after his escape from Venezuela and joined the covert US effort, directed by Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, to resupply the anti-communist Contra guerrillas with weapons.
The documents also connected him to a plot to overthrow the Guatemalan government in 1965 and said he handed over weapons, including a flame thrower and six gallons of napalm, to a US customs agent when the plan was uncovered.
And more information directly from the National Security Archives at George Washington University:
In 1998 he was interviewed by Anne Louise Bardach for the New York Times at a secret location in Aruba, and claimed responsibility for a string of hotel bombings in Havana during which eleven people were injured and one Italian businessman was killed. Most recently he was imprisoned in Panama for trying to assassinate Fidel Castro in December 2000 with 33 pounds of C-4 explosives. In September 2004, he and three co-conspirators were suddenly pardoned, and Posada went to Honduras. Venezuela is now preparing to submit an official extradition request to the United States for his return.
Although Posada has reportedly been in the Miami area for more than six weeks, the FBI has indicated it is not actively searching for him.