By Aracely Lazcano EL PASO, Texas, Jan 11 (Reuters) - A U.S. grand jury has indicted jailed anti-Castro Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles, accused of bombing a Cuban airliner in 1976, on seven immigration charges in a move that may assure he stays in custody. The U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday that Posada, 78, was charged with one count of naturalization fraud and six counts of making false statements while seeking U.S. citizenship after he entered the country illegally in 2005. Posada has been held without charges since May 2005, but a federal judge had set a February deadline for his release unless legal action was taken. The government said he would go before a federal magistrate in a hearing next week on the charges. Posada has been a political problem for the Bush administration because U.S. foes Cuba and Venezuela consider him a terrorist for his suspected involvement in a 1976 airline bombing that killed 73 people. They have sought to have him returned for trial, but the United States has refused. Cuba has accused the U.S. government of a double standard in its war on terrorism for failing to indict Posada, a former CIA operative, who Cuba says masterminded bomb attacks on Havana hotels in 1997 and plotted to blow up Cuban President Fidel Castro during a regional summit in Panama in 2000. Castro has insisted Posada was smuggled into the United States on the motorboat Santrina owned by Miami exile Santiago Alvarez, who received a four-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in a Florida federal court last November to one charge of illegal weapons possession. Many Cuban-Americans, an important voting bloc, consider Posada a hero for his anti-Castro efforts and have urged the United States to let him go. The U.S. government has fought any attempts to release Posada, but has stopped short of formally calling him a terrorist, which would allow him to be held indefinitely. Seven countries have refused U.S. requests to take Posada in. The indictment charges that Posada told immigration authorities he came into the United States overland with the help of a human smuggler when in fact he was brought in on a boat, accompanied by men who included other anti-Castro activists. It also says he lied when he denied he once had a fraudulent Guatemalan passport. If convicted, Posada faces up to 10 years in prison for the naturalization fraud charge and five years for each of the other six counts. An attorney for Posada was not immediately available for comment.
