US authorities have detained a bitter opponent of Cuban leader Fidel Castro who is wanted for plane and hotel bombings in Latin America and who had been seeking asylum in the US, officials said.
Luis Posada Carriles, 77, was arrested on Tuesday in Miami just hours after Castro led a march by hundreds of thousands of Cubans demanding that the US extradite the veteran militant, who was for many years a CIA operative.
The Department of Homeland Security said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents took Posada Carriles into custody and he could be held for 48 hours as part of a review of his immigration status.
A department statement highlighted, however, how the US does not extradite people to Cuba or "countries believed to be acting on Cuba's behalf."
Posada Carriles has been involved for decades in the battle against Castro's communist revolution.
He took part in the 1961 Bay of Pigs US-backed but failed invasion of Cuba. He was later a paid CIA operative for several years, according to declassified US documents.
Posada Carriles is wanted in Venezuela for a 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner off the coast of Barbados in which 73 people died. He was tried once and escaped from prison while awaiting a retrial.
Posada Carriles denies involvement in the bombing but Venezuela on Friday officially asked the US to arrest and extradite him.
Cuba also wants Posada Carriles for the 1997 bombings of Havana hotels, one of which killed an Italian tourist. He had admitted to plotting the bombings, according to the New York Times, but later recanted the confession.
Posada Carriles was also convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison in Panama for trying to kill Castro at a summit in the central American country in 2000. He was allegedly part of a plan to blow up Castro as he made a speech. He was pardoned last year.
He was smuggled into the US from Mexico on a Greyhound bus in March and requested political asylum, according to associates.
At a press conference on Tuesday morning, Posadas Carriles told reporters: "I've lived for 30 years in the clandestine world. If my application for asylum causes the United States problems, I will withdraw it."
His attorney, Eduardo Soto, said the arrest came after Posada Carriles had asked US immigration authorities to tear up his request for political asylum.
"Clearly ... his intention was to leave the United States and [US authorities] could simply have let him go," Soto added.
Castro led a giant march past the US Special Interests Section in Havana to demand that Washington take action over the militant. Cuban authorities said 1 million people would take part in the march.
The Cuban leader accused the US of subjecting the communist-ruled island to decades of terrorism and said militants like Posada Carriles who attacked Cuban targets had "always acted under the orders of the government and special services of the United States."
Castro has seized upon the Posada Carriles case to accuse US President George W. Bush's administration of supporting terrorism.
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