Venezuela urges US to extradite Posada
he Venezuelan government Wednesday formally asked the United States to extradite Luis Posada Carriles, accused of blowing up a Cuban airliner in 1976, state television reported on Wednesday.

This was the third note sent by Venezuela to the US regarding the issue.

Venezuelan ambassador to the US, Bernardo Alvarez, said in Washington that a formal petition for the extradition of Posada has been filed.

"We'd already requested his preventive arrest with a view to extradition, but now we're formally and directly requesting his extradition," State-run television channel VTV quoted Venezuelan Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez as saying.

"There is absolutely no reason of any kind to resist this obligation," the minister said.

Posada, 77, was born in Cuba and gained Venezuelan citizenship in 1960. He was sentenced to imprisonment in Venezuela on charges of involvement in a Cuban airliner bombing which killed 73 people in 1976. But he escaped from prison in 1985.

Posada illegally entered the United States in March and sought asylum there through his lawyer the next month. In mid-May, US authorities arrested Posada for having entered US territory illegally, but has refused to hand him over to Venezuela.

Venezuela had previously sent Washington two petitions for the arrest and extradition of Posada on May 13 and June 10.

In the second petition, Caracas also attached transcripts of testimony from Posada's previous trial and statements to investigators, after the US Justice Department dismissed the previous petition as legally insufficient.

Alvarez said his country expects full cooperation from the US government as part of the combat against terrorism, adding that he will hold a telephone conversation Wednesday with US officials later in the day to press for a swift response to the petition.