International terrorist Luis Posada Carriles is to appear today in a U.S. federal court to ask for his freedom, in spite of his long criminal record, which includes the bombing of a Cubana Aviation passenger plane.

According to his lawyer, Eduardo Soto, the request will be made under the pretext that Posada Carriles, arrested for more than a year after illegally entering U.S. territory, should not be indefinitely incarcerated.

The international criminal is currently in a detention center in Texas, where he has been held since May 2005 after appearing in public in Miami, when it was evident that he had illegally entered the United States from Mexico.

To date, the only legal charges he faces are immigration-related, despite the extradition request submitted by Venezuela, where he is wanted for his responsibility in the 1976 attack on a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people.

His criminal record also includes the plotting of a series of bomb attacks against tourist facilities in Havana in 1997, one of which killed a young Italian, Fabio Di Celmo.

Posada Carriles illegally entered the United States after being pardoned in 2004 by former Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso before she left office.