Chavez pans US on Posada's bail

Venezuela accused the US government of being an "accomplice" to a terrorist after Cuban militant Luis Posada Carriles was freed on bail, and vowed to mount a diplomatic and legal offensive for him to be tried in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner.

Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said on Thursday that the 79-year-old's release from a New Mexico jail, despite a long-standing Venezuelan extradition request, leaves "naked before public opinion" the hypocrisy of US President George W. Bush's government.

"The government of the United States could have acted in this case and didn't want to," Maduro said. "George Bush's government is an accomplice of this terrorist. It has protected him and today it has guaranteed his freedom, striking a blow against and mocking international law."

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez demanded in a speech earlier that the US extradite the ex-CIA agent.

"All of Venezuela lifts its indignant voice over the protection that the imperialist government of the United States continues to give to the father of all terrorists of all time in the American continent," Chavez told a crowd of supporters.

Posada, who was born in Cuba and naturalized in Venezuela, is wanted for trial in Caracas on charges he masterminded the 1976 airliner bombing off Barbados that killed 73 people. Posada has denied involvement.

Venezuela says Posada, a longtime opponent of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, plotted the bombing while living in Caracas. He escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985 and was detained in Florida in May 2005 for entering the US illegally.

Maduro said delegations of lawmakers from Venezuela and other countries "are going to leave immediately for some of the world's parliaments -- the European parliament, the US Congress" and others. He said they would protest Posada's release and lobby for action "so that this disgrace doesn't pass under the table."

Without offering specifics he said Venezuela is also preparing a series of legal actions.

"We call on the institutions of the United States ... on public opinion, the people of the United States ... on the governments of the world ... to search for justice," Maduro said.

He accused the Bush administration of flouting an extradition treaty and called it a "terrorist government."

Declassified US government documents detail Posada's alleged links to the 1976 bombing, including one State Department intelligence brief revealing an informant's account that just weeks before the bombing Posada said: "We are going to hit a Cuban airliner."

Maduro said Posada was being shielded because he "knows all the secrets of this mafia that governs the United States" -- including Cold War atrocities in places from Central America to Argentina.

After his prison escape in 1985, Posada soon became involved with US covert operatives in Central America, delivering weapons to Nicaraguan Contra rebels.

On Thursday, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said he would also ask for Posada to be tried in Nicaragua, saying his arms deliveries were "acts of terrorism against the Nicaraguan people."

Ortega, who led a Soviet-backed government in the 1980s, added that the decision to release Posada was also "an act of terrorism."

Chavez, a close ally of Castro, has compared Posada to al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. He said the fact that Posada was granted bail in the US showed the government's hypocrisy.

"They say they fight against terrorism, [but] there it is. Their mask keeps falling off," Chavez said. "The US empire will end up being a paper tiger, and we will be tigers of steel."