Posada's Release Spurs Cuban Ire

Portia Siegelbaum is a CBS News producer based in Havana.

Those two countries are demanding that the ex-CIA operative they call the "Osama Bin Laden of the Americas" be extradited to Caracas for trial on charges that he masterminded the 1976 bombing in mid-flight of a Cuban civilian airliner. All 73 passengers on board died, including the island's entire juvenile fencing team. The flight originated in Venezuela, where Posada, a naturalized Venezuelan citizen, was running a small private security firm.

Posada walked out of a New Mexico jail after posting bond and flew to Miami to stay at his wife's house until his May 11 trial on seven counts of immigration fraud involving lying to immigration officials. He was arrested in Miami in 2005. According to the Justice Department he will have to wear an electronic monitoring device and remain under 24-hour house arrest, allowed out only for meetings with his lawyers and doctor's visits.

The news of his release was briefly given during the midday newscast on Cuban State-run television. Shortly afterwards the foreign press was informed that the daily evening political talk show, the "Mesa Redonda" or "Round Table" slated to discuss the European Union would instead focus on Posada Carriles. They were also told that an activity would be held at 7 p.m. local time in the Field of Flags, a square normally filled with dozens of flagpoles flying black banners in memory of all Cuba's victims of terrorism. These include those who died during the U.S.-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, for which Posada was trained by the CIA, up to an Italian businessman Fabio Di Celmo who died Sept. 6, 1997, when a bomb exploded in the lobby of a Havana hotel. The square faces the U.S. Interests Section, Washington's lone diplomatic outpost in Cuba.

In a 1998 interview with The New York Times, Posada claimed credit for the series of hotel bombings that shook Havana in the late 90s, including the one that killed Di Celmo. He later retracted his statements but the Times sticks by the truth of the story.

Di Celmo's 86-year-old father, Justino, recalled the Times interview while speaking with CBS News just a few days ago.

"I remember the words of Posada Carriles, 'I ask forgiveness of the Di Celmo family' —and I have to say I don't have any family because when terrorism kills someone, it kills not only the victim but the whole family — 'I ask forgiveness because Fabio was in the wrong place at the wrong time, so my conscience is clear and I sleep like a baby.'" Justino Di Celmo said, his eyes brimming with tears.

The last thing he said to us was: "I beg that terrorism not be carried out anywhere."

Margarita Morales, whose father was the fencing team trainer and died in the plane bombing, says it doesn't matter that more than 30 years have passed — she still wants justice.

"Justice at this time would be that Posada Carriles be tried for his real crime, the crime of terrorism. He is being charged with immigration violations, which is the least of what he's done in his life," she said days before Posada's release.

Peter Kornbluh, whose organization, the National Security Archive, has posted declassified CIA and FBI records on Posada's history of violence says "U.S. intelligence overwhelmingly concluded that Posada was the mastermind of the bombing of Cubana Flight 455."

Kornbluh added, "By releasing one of the world most renowned and unremitting terrorists, the Bush administration has seriously damaged its credibility in the war or terror."

In a written message published in Cuba's official Communist Party daily last week, President Fidel Castro accused the Bush administration of protecting Posada and of deciding on "the liberation of the monster beforehand." He also called on Cubans to protest Posada's escape from justice on May first during the traditional parade marking International Workers Day.

The news of Posada's release came as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was addressing a massive crowd in a Caracas coliseum. "All of Venezuela lifts its indignant voice over the protection that the imperialist government of the United States continues to give to the father of all terrorists of all time in the American continent, the murderer Luis Posada Carriles," he told them.

Despite a Homeland Security order calling for Posada's deportation from the United States, a U.S. judge ruled that he could not be sent either to Cuba or Venezuela for fear that he might be tortured or given the death penalty there. All other countries approached by the U.S. have refused to accept Posada.

Cuba has renounced any claim on Posada, saying he should be tried in Venezuela or even the United States — but on charges of terrorism. Venezuela does not have the death penalty and has offered guarantees that Posada will not be tortured. But Washington has a hostile relation with both countries and is not likely to accept the word of either in this case.

Posada has a more than four-decade relationship with the CIA and was a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army at Fort Benning, Ga., from March 1963 until March 1964.

One of his more infamous involvements in carrying out U.S. foreign policy followed his escape from a Venezuelan jail where he was awaiting trial for the Cuban plane bombing. He popped up in El Salvador working for Col. Oliver North of the White House National Security Council, supplying arms for drugs to the anti-Sandinista forces in Nicaragua, an operation that exploded in the Iran Contra scandal.

Supervising Posada in El Salvador was another notorious Cuban exile, Felix Rodriguez, who has boasted of his connections with ex-President George H.W. Bush. A signed photograph of the senior Bush dedicated to Rodriguez hangs in his Miami apartment.

In 2000 Cuban intelligence agents accompanying Castro to a summit in Panama tipped off the government to a plot to assassinate the Cuban leader. Posada Carriles and several other Cuban exiles were arrested and jailed in the Panamanian capital for possession of plastic explosives. However, outgoing President Mireya Moscoso pardoned him and his cohorts in 2004, under what Cuba charges was pressure from the United States.