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Anti-Castro militant freed from U.S. jail

Luis Posada Carriles faces immigration charges. He is also accused in a '76 bombing.

MIAMI - Anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles, an aging ex-CIA operative suspected in a decades-old Cuban airliner bombing, was released from U.S. custody yesterday and flew to Miami as he awaits trial on immigration fraud charges.

Posada, 79, is awaiting a May 11 trial on allegations that he lied to immigration authorities while trying to become a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Posada was released from a New Mexico jail after posting bond and was flying to his wife's house in Miami yesterday, said his lawyer, Felipe D.J. Millan.

Earlier this week, an appeals court in New Orleans rejected the federal government's bid to keep Posada jailed until his trial. The release order puts him under 24-hour house arrest and an electronic monitoring device.

Posada is wanted in his native Cuba and in Venezuela, where he is accused of plotting the 1976 bombing of a jetliner that killed 73 people.

A judge ruled that he could not be deported to those countries because he might be tortured, and no other country has agreed to take him.

Attorneys for Venezuela have argued that under international law, if the United States decides not to return Posada to Venezuela, it should try him on the bombing charges.

Under the conditions of his release, Posada must try to find a country willing to take him, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said.

Posada has been jailed since March 2005, when he was caught in Miami and sent to El Paso to face immigration charges.