The Associated Press
 
HAVANA -- Giustino di Celmo's eyes fill with tears when he looks toward the corner of the hotel bar where his son died eight years ago in a bombing communist Cuba has blamed on an old foe, militant Luis Posada Carriles.

Posada, held in the United States on immigration charges, initially acknowledged involvement in the string of 1997 bombings of Cuba tourist locales that killed 32-year-old Italian tourist Fabio di Celmo. He later recanted.
 
Di Celmo hopes the 77-year-old Cuban born Posada will be extradited to Venezuela to be retried in a deadly airline bombing almost three decades ago.

Venezuela, a strong ally of Cuba, has requested Posada's extradition. Although the South American nation shares an extradition treaty with the United States, it remained unclear if the U.S. government would abide by the request.

``He should be extradited to Venezuela,'' Di Celmo said of Posada in a Thursday interview with The Associated Press. ``That government will mete out justice correctly.''

``I would appeal to the government of the United States, its president, the people of the United States and their noble tradition,'' added Di Celmo, vowing to spend the rest of his life, ``fighting day and night'' against terrorism.

The victim's father, now 85, described how his youngest child died on Sept. 4, 1997, in the explosion at the Hotel Copacabana when a piece of flying glass sliced a vein and he lost four liters of blood.

A Cuban tribunal found a young Salvadoran man guilty in that and other bombings of tourist locales that communist authorities say were directed from afar by Posada.

Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon, and another Salvadoran who remain imprisoned in Cuba appealing death penalty sentences handed down after they were found guilty, were among five Central Americans charged in the case.

``That could have been their son, or their wife, or a child in a stroller,'' Di Celmo said of the bombers. Just meters (yards) away is the hotel swimming pool, usually swarming with tourists.

The explosion occurred as the young Di Celmo, who was living and working in Cuba as a travel agent and businessman, was waiting in the bar for his father to come down from his hotel room.

Now that Posada is in custody, the elder Di Celmo hopes the man he blames for his son's death is brought to justice.

Posada was picked up by U.S. immigration authorities on Tuesday and was charged Thursday with entering the country illegally. He is being held with bond pending a June 13 hearing.