CARACAS, May 25 (PL) – Ricardo Alarcón, the president of the Cuban Parliament, called on the United States today to extradite Luis Posada Carriles to Venezuela or to put him on trial for acts or terrorist, instead of lesser charges.

Alarcón, who began a visit to Venezuela today to participate in a bilateral inter-parliamentary conference, explained that Washington is a signer of the Montreal Convention on sanctioning crimes against civil aviation.

Interviewed on the Venezuelan television program "In Confidence," the Cuban leader explained that the aforementioned convention stipulates that if for some reason a state cannot extradite someone suspected of such a crime, that same country should put the person on trial for those deeds.

"The US government should extradite Posada to Venezuela, simply because the trial against him was interrupted by his escape from prison, but if it doesn’t do so, it is obliged to try him as though the action had occurred in the U.S," Alarcón noted.

"They are obliged to try him as though it had happened there, as if it had been a Pan American Airlines plane and not a Cuban one, as if it had been US citizens who had died and not Guyanese, Korean and Cuban," he emphasized.

He pointed out that the mandate was established "without exceptions of any kind," in Article 7 of the Montreal Convention, because it was understood that the sabotage of civilian passenger planes is an action too serious to leave open doors for the authors of such a crime to escape.

Alarcón added that it is not true that the current dilemma revolves only around whether or not to extradite the criminal to Venezuela, given that according to the convention signed by the United States, the latter is obliged to continue the trial begun here (in Venezuela) for the destruction of a Cuban passenger plane in 1976 that killed 73 people.

Likewise, he explained that if Posada were to be handed over to Venezuela, the US government should do so – in compliance with international agreements – with all of the evidence that it possesses and has concealed for years.

The parliamentary president also stated that the Montreal Convention eliminates the possibility of deporting Posada to a third country – as it is said that the administration is trying to do with El Salvador – to be tried for a lesser crime such as falsification of documents.

Early this month, Venezuela demanded the extradition of Posada, who fled from a national prison in 1985 to evade trial for the Cuban airliner crime.

Nevertheless, the US authorities announced that on June 13, a court will hear his case with respect to the violation of immigration laws, a much lesser crime than that of the airplane attack.