MIAMI - The United States says it does not know the whereabouts of Luis Posada Carriles -- who is accused of trying to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro -- but a Miami newspaper which ran an interview with Posada Carriles on Tuesday could probably tell them.
El Nuevo Herald ran an interview with the Cuban-born militant who Cuba and Venezuela say is a terrorist. The newspaper said Posada Carriles, 77, has been spied in supermarkets and doctors' offices in the city which has a large Cuban-American community.
"I thought the US government was looking for me," the former CIA operative told the Spanish-language daily. But he added that he soon realized this was not the case.
The interview was published as about one million Cubans marched in Havana against terrorism and demanded Posada Carriles' extradition to Venezuela for the 1976 bombing of a Cuban jet in which 73 people were killed.
El Nuevo Herald said Posada was interviewed in a residential building in Miami's Brickell neighborhood -- but he would not disclose where he lives.
He told the newspaper, as he has maintained in the past, that he was not behind the attack on the Cubana de Avacion jet just off the coast of Barbados.
He neither confirmed nor denied his involvement in a 1997 string of Havana hotel bombings in which Italian Fabio Di Celmo was killed.
On the Cubana downing, Posada Carriles said "they have accused me of being the mastermind, of making an explosive device and of betraying the fatherland. Nobody has seen me make a bomb."
"Sincerely, I didn't know a thing about that," he added.
And on the Havana hotel bombings, Posada Carriles, asked about his alleged involvement, said: "Let's leave that to history," El Nuevo Herald reported.
Posada Carriles once admitted to plotting those bombings, according to The New York Times, although he later recanted that admission.
Posada Carriles was convicted and sentenced to eight years in prison in Panama for trying to kill Castro at a summit in the central American country in 2000, but was pardoned in 2004. He and three others were accused of plotting to blow up Castro as he gave a speech.
Posada Carriles entered the United States -- smuggled in through Mexico -- in March and requested political asylum. He is awaiting an interview with immigration officials for which his attorney, Eduardo Soto, says he will emerge from his seclusion.
The US State Department has repeatedly said it does not know where Posada Carriles is.
Yet he has been hiding in virtually plain sight, according to El Nuevo Herald, which said older Cuban-Americans have spotted the fugitive at the supermarket and at doctor's appointments.
Venezuela wants him on charges of destroying the Cubana jet. He was tried in Venezuela but escaped from jail in 1985 while his case was on appeal.
Cuba wants Posada Carriles for the Havana hotel bombings.
Posada Carriles deserves asylum, according to his lawyer, because he supported the interests of the United States for approximately four decades.
Cuban President Fidel Castro and his close regional ally Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez argue that while US President George W. Bush claims he is fighting terror around the world, Bush is harboring a terrorist to his liking.
05/17/2005 14:33 GMT