Free Republic

President Fidel Castro called the U.S. airstrike that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi a ``barbarity,'' saying he should have been put on trial. The United States acted as ``judge and jury'' against the leader of the al-Qaida in Iraq, Castro said late Friday. ``They bragged, they were practically drunk with happiness.'' ``The accused cannot just be eliminated,'' he told a literacy conference. ``This barbarity cannot be done.'' The U.S. military has said al-Zarqawi initially survived the dropping of two 500-pound bombs on his hide-out Wednesday, but died a short time later. Castro said if Cuba used the same logic, it could...

Cuban leader Fidel Castro has called for a demonstration next Tuesday to protest against what he described as the support of the United States to an individual involved in terrorist acts against the island. Castro condemned on Tuesday evening the refusal of the United States to capture and indict Cuban Luis Posada Carriles, who currently is in US territory, local media reported Wednesday. "We won't just stay like this," Castro said. "We are going to demand justice and the end of support to assassins." The demonstration will take place outside the United States Office for Cuban Interests, said the Cuban...

WASHINGTON - A Cuban exile long regarded as a violent opponent of Cuban President Fidel Castro has applied for asylum in the United States, a government official said Monday. Luis Posada Carriles, a suspect in the bombing of a Cuban passenger plane in 1976, reportedly slipped into South Florida several weeks ago but the Bush administration says it cannot confirm his whereabouts. Posada, a former senior officer of the Venezuelan intelligence service, denies involvement in the bombing, which killed 73 people, including 24 members of Cuba's national fencing team. To be eligible for political asylum, Posada must prove that he...