By ALICIA A. CALDWELL
Associated Press Writer
EL PASO, Texas -- A 77-year-old anti-Castro militant accused of orchestrating the deadly 1976 bombing of a Cuban jetliner faces a deportation hearing that will also consider whether the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion was an act of U.S. terrorism.
Luis Posada Carriles is being held in a federal detention center in El Paso on charges that he sneaked into the country through Mexico in March. He was arrested in Miami in May.
At issue in Monday's hearing, which could last a week, is whether the former CIA operative and U.S. Army lieutenant should be granted asylum in the United States despite requests by Venezuela that he be deported to that country.
Venezuelan officials have alleged that Posada, an ex-Venezuelan security official, was in Caracas when he plotted the bombing of the Cuban jetliner that crashed off the coast of Barbados, killing 73 people.
A recently declassified CIA document quotes an unidentified former Venezuelan official as saying that shortly before the bombing, Posada was heard to say that he and others "are going to hit a Cuban airplane."
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