Bomb Resonates With Diplomats, Not With the Bomber (NYT re: Posada associate)

[struggle4progress]

By SIMON ROMERO
Published: February 3, 2007

CARACAS, Venezuela

... Mr. Lugo .... was one of two men sentenced to 20 years in prison for placing explosives on a DC-8 jetliner flown by Cubana Airlines in 1976.

The plane blew up in the sky above Barbados, killing everyone on board, including two dozen members of Cuba’s national fencing team and a 9-year-old Guyanese girl. That explosion, considered the first act of midair terrorism in the Americas, poisons relations between Havana and Washington to this day.

Mr. Lugo, 65, who was released in 1993 after 17 years in prison, has tried to put the past behind him ....

A new book on the Cubana bombing, called “Terrorist of the Bush Family,” by two Venezuelan journalists, Alexis Rosas and Ernesto Villegas, has not helped either. The book has become a best seller since its release here last November. It has focused new attention on the bombing and the request by Venezuela for Washington to extradite the Cuban exile accused of masterminding the bombing, Luis Posada Carriles, to face terrorism charges here ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/03/world/americas/03lugo.html?ref=world