[3][4] He received training at Fort Benning, and from 1964 to 1967 was involved with a series of bombings and other covert activities against the Cuban government, before joining the Venezuelan intelligence service.

[10][11][12] In addition, he was jailed under accusations related to an assassination attempt on Fidel Castro in Panama in 2000, although he was later pardoned by Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso in the final days of her term.

The US Justice Department had urged the court to keep him in jail because he was "an admitted mastermind of terrorist plots and attacks", a flight risk and a danger to the community.

[12] The decision was also criticized within the US; an editorial in the Los Angeles Times stated that by releasing Posada while detaining a number of suspected terrorists in Guantánamo Bay, the US government was guilty of hypocrisy.

[17] Reporter Ann Louise Bardach called him "Fidel Castro's most persistent would-be assassin,"[18] while Peter Kornbluh of the National Security Archive referred to him as "one of the most dangerous terrorists in recent history" and the "godfather of Cuban exile violence.

[21] After the failure at the Bay of Pigs, Posada attended officer candidate school at the United States Army's facility in Fort Benning.

[5][3][23][4] While at Fort Benning, he served in the same platoon as Jorge Mas Canosa, later the founder of the Cuban American National Foundation: the two men became fast friends.

He later described his role as that of the agency's "principal agent", informing the organisation about political movements within the exile community and operating anti-Castro activities.

[28] Posada was dismissed from the service in 1974 due to ideological differences with the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez, who had assumed office in that year.

[28] The Church Committee hearings of 1975, which had been triggered by fears that the CIA were running too many rogue operations, had a significant impact on the agency, and Posada's association was seen to be "not in good odor".

Subsequently, Posada made several efforts to get back into the agency's good graces, including informing on an alleged plot by Bosch to kill Henry Kissinger, then US Secretary of State.

On October 6, 1976, two time bombs variously described as dynamite or C-4 planted on the Douglas DC-8 aircraft exploded, killing all 73 people on board, including all 25 members of the 1975 Cuban national fencing team.

[1][5][9][34][35] Investigators from Cuba, Venezuela and the United States traced the planting of the bombs to two Venezuelan passengers, Freddy Lugo and Hernán Ricardo Lozano.

Posada escaped from prison with Freddie Lugo in 1977, and the pair turned themselves in to the Chilean authorities, expecting to be welcomed for their role in the killing of Letelier, who was a target of the government of Augusto Pinochet: however, they were immediately handed back to Venezuela.

[43] Posada's fortunes rose after the Reagan administration took a more confrontational approach to Cuba and expanded covert operations in Latin America.

Posada was given a house and a car, and paid $3,000 per month, $750 for each flight he made, and sundry expenses, primarily by US Major General Richard Secord, who was directing operations for North.

Operating with the Salvadoran alias "Ramón Medina", Posada built relationships inside the government of El Salvador, its military, and its infamous death squads.

In his memoir, Posada said that his recovery and medical bills were paid by the Cuban American National Foundation, with additional payments from Secord.

[52] The Cuban Ministry of the Interior claimed that on the September 4, 1997, three bomb attacks against hotels in Havana, in which one person was killed, were planned and controlled by CANF.

[52] On November 17, 2000, Posada was discovered with 200 pounds of explosives in Panama City and arrested for plotting the assassination of Castro, who was visiting the country for the first time since 1959.

[63][45] While in prison, Posada released a statement renouncing terrorism, and stating that he had been framed for the assassination attempt in Panama by the Cuban intelligence services.

"[13] Moscoso's decision was condemned by incoming Panamanian president Martín Torrijos,[65] and speculation was rife that the pardon was politically motivated.

[54] Although he was arrested following international pressure on the administration of George W. Bush to treat him on par with other suspects in the War on Terror, the US refused to extradite him to either Venezuela or Cuba.

"[69] During a United Nations Security Council meeting to review the work of its three subsidiary counter-terrorism committees, the US was invited by the representatives of Venezuela and Cuba to comment on the evidence (above) in the Posada case.

My family and I are outraged and disappointed that a known terrorist, Luis Posada, is going to trial for perjury and immigration fraud, not for the horrific crime of masterminding the bombing of a civilian airliner.

[68] In 2009, a federal grand jury issued a superseding indictment, which marked the first time Posada was officially linked by the US government to the 1997 bombings in Cuba.

[74] The fact that he was not tried for murder or terrorism was strongly criticized by Cuba and Venezuela, while the Center for Democracy in the Americas described it as "charging Al Capone with tax evasion".

A spokesman of the US Justice Department expressed disappointment in the outcome, while the Cuban and Venezuelan governments denounced the trial: Venezuela stated that the US was protecting a known terrorist.

[78] Towards the end of his life, Posada lived in Miami, where he often attended fund raisers among the right-wing exile groups, and participated in protests against the government of Fidel Castro.

[29] A November 2016, El Nuevo Herald newspaper article described Posada in a Miami restaurant celebrating Castro's death.