HAVANA — A letter bearing ailing leader Fidel Castro's signature accused the American government Tuesday of planning to free a monster, criticizing a U.S. judge's refusal to reconsider her order to grant bail to his longtime anti-communist nemesis Luis Posada Carriles.
"The most genuine representative of the system of terror that has been imposed upon the world by the technological, economic and political superiority of most potent power in the world is, without question, George W. Bush," the communique read.
Entitled "Reflections of the Commander in Chief," the written statement distributed late Tuesday by Foreign Ministry officials was the third in recent days attributed to Castro, who has not been seen in public in more than eight months after undergoing intestinal surgery.
Tuesday night's statement noted that while Cuba and Venezuela accuse Posada of being a terrorist responsible for violent acts, including the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people, the U.S. government is holding him on a far less serious immigration charge.
"It was the same President Bush who constantly eluded the criminal and terrorist character of the accused," the statement read. "He was protected by being charged with a simple violation of migratory filings.
"The answer is brutal," Castro wrote, referring to U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone's ruling Friday in El Paso, Texas, that Posada, 79, should be freed pending his scheduled May trial on charges he lied to immigration authorities in a bid to become a naturalized citizen.
Cardone earlier Tuesday denied motions by U.S. prosecutors to either reverse her decision or hold a hearing about the origin of property Posada could use to post his $250,000 bond.
Posada, currently held at the Otero County jail in New Mexico, cannot be released until the terms of his bond have been executed. If freed, he would be held under house arrest in Miami with family members acting as custodians pending his immigration trial.
"The government of the United States and its most representative institutions have decided the liberation of the monster beforehand," Castro's communique read.
The 80-year-old Castro announced July 31 he had undergone emergency intestinal surgery and temporarily ceded his presidential functions to his 75-year-old brother Raul, the defense minister.
Castro's medical condition and actual ailment remain a state secret, but he is widely believed to suffer from diverticular disease, a common affliction among the elderly that causes inflammation and bleeding in the colon.
There has been a growing expectation on the island that Castro will soon make a public appearance, but in recent weeks he has appeared only as the author of what are now three written articles.
The first two, on March 29 and April 4, were published on the front page of the Communist Party daily and criticized a biofuel proposal by the United States and Brazil, saying the use of food crops to produce ethanol for automobiles could cause poor people to go hungry.
In previous months, Castro was also shown in official photographs and videotapes — first looking thin and wan, but later appearing much stronger.
The Cuban-born Posada is a longtime foe of Castro, who publicly accused him at a presidential summit in Panama in 2000 of plotting to assassinate him. Posada was soon afterward arrested in Panama and convicted on lesser charges before being pardoned in 2004 by then Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso.
Cuba accuses Posada of being the mastermind of the 1976 Cubana airliner bombing off the coast of Barbados — a charge he denies. Among those killed were the young members of a Cuban fencing team returning home after a regional competition.
Venezuelan authorities want to extradite Posada for trial in the South American country, where he is a naturalized citizen. Posada was arrested in Venezuela a few days after the bombing and escaped from prison there in 1985 before a civilian trial in the case was completed.
Posada also acknowledged, and then denied, a role in Havana hotel bombings in 1997 that killed a tourist.
Posada was detained in Florida in May 2005 for entering the United States illegally. A U.S. immigration judge has ruled that he cannot be sent to Cuba or Venezuela, citing fears that he would be tortured.
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