President Fidel Castro called the US airstrike that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi a “barbarity,” saying he should have been put on trial.

The United States acted as “judge and jury” against the leader of the al-Qaida in Iraq, Castro said “They bragged, they were practically drunk with happiness.”

“The accused cannot just be eliminated,” he told a literacy conference. “This barbarity cannot be done”.

The US military has said al-Zarqawi initially survived the dropping of two 500-pound bombs on his hide-out Wednesday, but died a short time later.

Castro said if Cuba used the same logic, it could bomb the United States to kill its No. 1 enemy, Luis Posada Carriles, who is being held in El Paso, Texas on immigration charges.

The communist government accuses the Cuban-born Posada of masterminding numerous violent attacks against the island, including the bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people in 1976. Posada denies involvement in the bombing of the plane.