Cuba condemns Posada release

HAVANA, April 20 (UPI) -- Cuban officials have condemned the release on bond in the United States of militant Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles.

Posada returned to Miami Thursday following a two-year incarceration in El Paso, Texas, on immigration fraud charges. He was released on a $350,000 bond while he awaits trial scheduled for May 11.

Venezuela Thursday condemned the release of Carriles, wanted in Venezuela on terror charges.

Cuba called Posada "the most notorious terrorist who ever existed in this hemisphere," Granma newspaper reported.

The 79-year-old Posada contends he entered the United States across the Mexican border in 2005, though Cuban officials assert he was smuggled into the country with the help of anti-Castro activists.

Posada, who escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985, is charged in Venezuela with masterminding the bombing of a Cuban jetliner in 1976, killing 73 people. He has denied any involvement in the bombing.