US authorities are probing a 1997 bombing that killed an Italian tourist in Havana to determine whether it involved former CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles, who faces trial in Texas on immigration charges, the Miami Herald reported Thursday.
The daily said FBI agents recently traveled to the communist-led country to gather evidence in the 1997 attack, one of several Cuba claims was masterminded by Posada Carriles, who had been convicted in the deadly 1976 downing of a Cuban jetliner.
The paper said the Havana hotel bombing is the focus of a federal grand jury probe in Newark, New Jersey.
A Cuban-born Venezuelan national staunchly opposed to President Fidel Castro's communist, Posada Carriles, 79, is currently under home detention in Miami pending the May 11 start of his trial on charges he entered the United States illegally.
In an unusual move, FBI agents visited Cuba last year to interview witnesses, review forensic evidence and visit crime scenes, the newspaper said.
Cuba claims Posada Carriles planned the 1997 bombing at Havana's Copacabana hotel that killed Italian tourist Fabio di Celmo, whose family is seeking Posada's prosecution.
Publicly, Cuba and Venezuela, have accused the United States of harbouring a known terrorist at a time when Washington claims to be waging a war on terror.
Posada Carriles was convicted in Venezuela in 1976 of masterminding the downing of the Cuban jet off Barbados, which killed 73 people.
He escaped from prison in 1985, was sentenced to eight years in jail in Panama in a 2000 bomb plot to assassinate Castro, and was pardoned four years later.
He was detained by US immigration officials in May 2005 for entering the United States illegally and lying about his immigration status.
He was released on a 350,000-dollar bond on April 19, pending the May 11 start of his trial.
Posada Carriles is widely considered a hero among the anti-Castro exile community in Miami.
Venezuela and Cuba have both demanded his extradition, but US authorities refused, saying he might be tortured.
The US government is also seeking to bar Posada Carriles from talking about his links with the agency when he goes on trial.
In a nine-page motion filed with a federal tribunal in El Paso, Texas, last week, state prosecutors claimed those ties were not relevant to the trial since his relationship with the CIA ended more than 30 years ago.
Declassified US documents show that Posada Carriles worked for the CIA from 1965 to June 1976. He reportedly helped the US government ferry supplies to the Contra rebels who waged a bloody campaign to topple the socialist Sandinista government in Nicaragua in the 1980s.
