Cubana airline bombing accused Orlando Bosch dies in Miami

Orlando Bosch

MIAMI, (Reuters) – Orlando Bosch, a militant  anti-communist Cuban exile who spent 11 years in jail in  Venezuela for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner but was  later acquitted, died in Miami yesterday. He was 84. 

Orlando Bosch

A statement from his family said the death of Cuba-born  Bosch followed “a long and painful illness.”  

It did not give a specific cause of the death of Bosch, who  has been hailed by many in Miami’s Cuban exile community as a  hero for his long-standing opposition to Fidel Castro and  Cuba’s communist government. 

The Cuban government website cubadebate.com reported his  death, calling him a “terrorist.”  

Bosch was jailed in Miami in February 1988 when he entered  the United States illegally from Venezuela, where he had been  finally acquitted in the 1976 Cuban airliner bombing in which  73 people including Guyanese were killed.  

He was freed in 1990 after the U.S. government failed to  find a country willing to accept him as a deportee.  

Prior to his arrival in Miami, Bosch spent 11 years in a  Venezuelan prison for the bombing, which he was accused of  planning along with fellow anti-Castro exile Luis Posada  Carriles.  

More than 40 years ago, Bosch was convicted and jailed in  the United States for firing a bazooka at a Polish freighter  docked in Miami port. He fled the United States in 1974,  violating his parole.  

Posada Carriles, 83, was recently tried in El Paso, Texas,  on charges of lying to U.S. immigration officials about how he  sneaked into the United States in 2005 and about his alleged  role in bombings of Cuban tourist sites in 1997.