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Ex-Official: Yes, I Met With Fidel Castro

Cuban hadn't been seen in months amid rumors of ill health

By the Associated Press

Posted Oct 21, 2012 11:57 AM CDT

(AP) – Former Venezuelan Vice President Elias Jaua said today that he met with aging revolutionary icon Fidel Castro for five hours and showed the AP photos of the encounter, quashing persistent rumors that the former Cuban leader was on his deathbed or had suffered a massive stroke. Jaua also confirmed that the 86-year-old retired Cuban president personally accompanied him to the Hotel Nacional after their meeting yesterday, in which they talked about politics, history, culture and tourism.

"He had the courtesy of bringing me to the hotel," Jaua said, adding that Castro looked "very well." Jaua showed a photograph of himself seated in a minibus along with the former Cuban leader, Castro's wife, Dalia Soto del Valle, a hotel executive and several other people. The photo shows Jaua and Castro smiling broadly, and the former Cuban leader is wearing a checked shirt and cowboy hat. Castro's health has been the subject of intense speculation in recent days, with one doctor claiming that he has suffered a stroke.

A picture of Fidel Castro at a polling station in Havana, Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012.
A picture of Fidel Castro at a polling station in Havana, Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012.   (AP Photo/Ismael Francisco/Cubadebate)
In this Feb. 10, 2012 file photo, Cuba's leader Fidel Castro speaks during a meeting with intellectuals and writers at the International Book Fair in Havana, Cuba.
In this Feb. 10, 2012 file photo, Cuba's leader Fidel Castro speaks during a meeting with intellectuals and writers at the International Book Fair in Havana, Cuba.   (AP Photo/Cubadebate, Roberto Chile, File)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 14 comments
Steve4freedom
Oct 21, 2012 8:24 PM CDT
He was for 5 hours with that cretine bloodthirsty punk and didn't shoot him? Oh well, maybe the CIA defends him as they did over 50 years... America's lil' darling, castrated castro.
Bartmaeus
Oct 21, 2012 3:10 PM CDT
Great Leader of the Glorious Revolution, eh pinkos?  http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Book-Communism-Repression/dp/0674076087 Glorious Revolution in the name of the People, eh, lefties?: “We must turn Russia into a desert populated by white Negroes upon whom we shall impose a tyranny such as the most terrible Eastern despots never dreamt of.  The only difference is that this will be a left-wing tyranny, not a right-wing tyranny.  It will be a red tyranny and not a white one. We mean the word ‘red’ literally, because we shall shed such floods of blood as will make all the human losses suffered in the capitalist wars quake and pale by comparison. The biggest bankers across the ocean will work in the closest possible contact with us.  If we win the revolution, we shall establish the power of Zionism upon the wreckage of the revolution’s funeral, and we shall become a power before which the whole world will sink to its knees. We shall show what real power is.  By means of terror and bloodbaths, we shall reduce the Russian intelligentsia to a state of complete stupefaction and idiocy and to an animal existence!” :Trotsky
guvner
Oct 21, 2012 2:15 PM CDT
Viva el infarcto cerebral!

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Fidel Castro • Cuba • public appearance

 
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