Victims Protest Cuban Militant's Release

Cuban writer Nicanor Leon presents his book "Crime in Barbados", about the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976, in Havana, Wednesday, April 11, 2007. A letter bearing the signature of ailing leader Fidel Castro criticized a U.S. judge's decision to release his longtime foe Luis Posada Carriles on bail. Cuba and Venezuela accuse Posada of being a terrorist responsible for numerous violent acts, including the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. (AP Photo/ Javier Galeano) (Javier Galeano - AP)

HAVANA -- Tearful relatives of Cubans killed in a 1976 airline bombing blamed on anti-communist militant Luis Posada Carriles denounced on Wednesday a U.S. court ruling allowing him to be released from jail on bond.

Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro, in a signed statement, accusing American authorities of planning to free a "monster" after a U.S. judge upheld a decision to grant Posada bail.

"I'm outraged," said Iliana Alfonso, whose father was among those killed on the Cubana de Aviacion flight that exploded off Barbados. "In the United States, they are talking about good terrorism and bad terrorism. To me, all terrorism is bad."

Posada, a Cuban-born former CIA operative and naturalized citizen of Venezuela, is wanted in Cuba and Venezuela for masterminding the jetliner bombing, which killed 73 people _ charges Posada denies. Cuba's government has repeatedly accused the U.S. government of protecting Posada by holding him on a far less serious charge.

The 79-year-old Posada is being held in New Mexico on immigration charges, but could go free after U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone's refusal to reverse her earlier ruling granting his request for bail.

Cardone ruled in El Paso, Texas, on Friday that Posada could be released on $250,000 bond from the Otero County jail, pending trial on charges of lying to immigration authorities in a bid to become a naturalized American citizen. She subsequently rejected U.S. prosecutors' motions to reconsider.

Alfonso read aloud a protest Wednesday by relatives of victims of the airline bombing. "It is not ethical to unleash wars against terrorism, provoking the deaths of thousands of citizens in distant parts of the world while sheltering in its own territory terrorists who are self-confessed and still active," it said.

Castro called the decision "brutal."

"The government of the United States and its most representative institutions have decided the liberation of the monster beforehand," he wrote.

The letter was the third in recent days signed by the 80-year-old Castro, who announced July 31 he had undergone emergency intestinal surgery and provisionally ceded his presidential functions to his 75-year-old brother, Raul, the defense minister.

The Cuban leader's medical condition and ailment remain state secrets, but Castro is widely believed to suffer from diverticular disease, which causes inflammation and bleeding in the colon.

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry on Wednesday also slammed the U.S. court decision, accusing the United States of protecting a "terrorist."