WASHINGTON (PL).— Cuban-American groups this Thursday demanded the arrest of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who entered the United States illegally one month ago, and called on the White House to reject his asylum application.

Various media reported from Miami that the groups condemned the administration’s silence concerning the terrorist, the self-confessed author of the sabotage of a Cuban passenger plane in 1976, that resulted in 73 deaths.

“How much longer is the Bush administration going to shelter this terrorist?” asked Andrés Gómez from the Antonio Maceo Brigade, in allusion to the refuge granted by successive governments to that subject. In a press conference in Miami, Max Lesnik, head of the Martí Alliance, called on Bush to arrest Posada Carriles so as to act in accordance with his self-proclaimed anti-terrorist campaign.

Posada, a fugitive from Venezuelan justice, acknowledged in an interview with a US daily that he headed a series of dynamite attacks on Cuban hotels in 1997, which cost the life of Italian tourist Fabio di Celmo.

The ANSWER coalition, an anti-war group in favor of civil liberties, likewise demanded that Bush reject the asylum application. It also called for Posada Carriles  to be extradited to Venezuela, from which country he escaped in 1985, while awaiting the verdict on his participation in the sabotage of the Cuban aircraft.

An ANSWER communiqué noted that the terrorist and killer asked for asylum in the United States via a Miami lawyer, Eduardo Soto, who stated in the application that Posada Carriles was seeking that status on account of having worked for the CIA.

Posada Carriles was detained in Panama in November 2000, where he was plotting to assassinate the Cuban president, Fidel Castro by placing an explosive device in the University Auditorium, where thousands of Panamanian civilians were gathered.

ANSWER maintains that the presence of Posada, Orlando Bosch and other terrorists in Miami is evidence of the US government complicity in attacks on Cuba.

The Miami Herald notes today in an editorial that Washington will lose its reputation in its battle against terrorism if asylum is granted. The daily stated that the lessons of September 11 – the terrorist attacks of 2001 – must never be forgotten: violence against civilian populations can never be justified whatever the cause.