Fidel Castro accused the United States on Tuesday of planning to free a man he has characterized as the western hemisphere’s worst terrorist, directing a march of tens of thousands of people who equated US President George W Bush with Adolf Hitler, according to the Associated Press.
The government-organised march past the American mission in Havana was timed to coincide with the end of a 90-day detention period Tuesday for Luis Posada Carriles, an anti-Castro militant held at a US federal detention center in Texas on immigration charges.
“The government of the United States deliberately seeks to… free the terrorist Luis Posada Garriles,” Castro said.
Cuba and Venezuela accuse the Cuban-born Posada of masterminding the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner and of staging bombings in Havana in 1997 and 1998.
Castro called the march to protest recent US actions aimed at Cuba, including a new electronic sign along the American mission’s facade to broadcast human rights messages. The US Interests Section in Havana handles consular affairs in the absence of full diplomatic relations.
Source: Associated Press and The Tribune
