SAN SALVADOR.- Efforts are underway in El Salvador to extradite
                   terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, one of the masterminds of the 1976
                   explosion of a commercial aircraft that killed 73 passengers and
                   fugitive from Venezuelan justice. The purpose of this maneuver is to
                   avoid his extradition from Panama to any other country.

                   According to analysts and opponents of the government, it’s not
                   strange that El Salvador, where the terrorist has operated since the
                   1980s, would be the country to throw him a lifeline. He’ll simply
                   serve a short sentence for falsifying documents and then walk free.

                   As Salvadoran President Francisco Flores and Panamanian President
                   Mireya Moscoso met in El Salvador, leaks to the government-run
                   press revealed that the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) had
                   requested Posada’s extradition.

                   The formal petition was presented by the 3rd Investigative Court and
                   approved by the CSJ to begin the legal process through the Foreign
                   Ministry, which until now has kept the matter secret.

                   Posada Carriles, who also goes by other names corresponding to
                   baptism and birth certificates, identification cards and even renewed
                   passports, was captured in Panama in 2000, after a plot to
                   assassinate President Fidel Castro was exposed.

                   Tried and imprisoned in Venezuela for the massacre committed
                   against athletes and other passengers aboard a Cubana passenger
                   aircraft, Posada Carriles escaped from prison with the help of U.S.
                   secret service agents and the anti-Cuba mafia in Miami.

                   Last November, Cuba’s request for extradition of the terrorist and his
                   collaborators, all flagrant terrorists, was denied.

                   The Salvadoran press reported on Thursday, March 7, that Posada
                   Carriles, born in Cuba and a nationalized Venezuelan citizen, was
                   detained with a shipment of explosives meant to be used for
                   assassinating the Cuban president and his delegation, who were
                   attending the 10th Ibero-American Summit in Panama. The explosion
                   would also have caused the deaths of thousands of students
                   participating in the event at the University of Panama, attended by
                   the leader of the Cuban Revolution.

                   In revealing declarations during a press conference, the Salvadoran
                   president admitted to having spoken to Moscoso on Wednesday,
                   March 6, about the Posada Carriles case, and his country’s interest in
                   trying him for forgery of legal identification.

                   One day after the extradition request was made public, Flores stated,
                   "Ms. Mireya has informed me that the judge, upon e prosecution’s
                   request, has declared there is no case in the charges against the
                   terrorist.

                   The president’s declarations led legislator Nidia Díaz to presume that
                   the motive behind Flores’ request for the extradition of Posada –
                   who is accused of a long list of crimes – is to prevent him from falling
                   into the hands of other countries interested in trying him for murder.

                   The Salvadoran president commented that according to Moscoso,
                   Panamanian authorities are convinced that the notion that Posada
                   Carriles "was planning an assassination" is false, and that he will be
                   tried for other crimes like entering the country with false documents.

                   (With information from Notimex)