Houston ? Convalescing Cuban leader Fidel Castro blamed an airliner hijack attempt on the United States, saying in a statement published Tuesday that two soldiers who seized a plane and killed an officer thought they would escape punishment if they reached U.S. soil.

Castro linked the failed attempt to the recent release of anti-communist militant Luis Posada Carriles from U.S. custody on bond. Cuba’s Foreign Ministry distributed Castro’s statement to international reporters by e-mail late Monday and it was published Tuesday in the Communist Party daily Granma.

The hijacking, 80-year-old leader declared, was “a consequence of freeing the monster of terror.”

“The impunity and the material benefits that have been rewarded for nearly half a century for all violent action against Cuba stimulate such acts,” he wrote.