Former Cuban president Fidel Castro called the case of two Americans accused of spying for Cuba “strange” on Saturday and questioned whether the timing of their arrests was politically motivated.
In an essay read by a newscaster on state TV, Castro said that the retired Washington couple were taken into custody just 24 hours after the Organization of American States (OAS) voted to lift a decades-old suspension of Cuba’s membership in that group.
Though the US ultimately supported the OAS vote on Wednesday, the administration of US President Barack Obama initially wanted to see more democratic reforms on the communist island before Cuba was readmitted.
Castro called the OAS vote “a defeat for United States diplomacy.”
Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, Gwendolyn, were arrested on Thursday in Washington after a three-year investigation that began before Myers’ retirement from the State Department in 2007.
The US government said they had been spying for Havana for 30 years, recruited by Cuba after a 1978 trip there. Myers received his orders by Morse code and he and his wife usually hand-delivered intelligence, sometimes by exchanging carts in a grocery store, court documents said.
“Doesn’t the story of Cuban spying seem really ridiculous to everyone?” Castro asked, without commenting on its validity.
Myers had been under suspicion since 1995 and FBI investigation since 2006.
If the couple had been watched that long, “why were they not arrested before?” Castro asked.
Court documents say the two were such valued spies, they once had a four-hour meeting with Castro, whom Myers described as one of the great modern political leaders.
Castro said he doesn’t recall meeting them when he was still president.
“I met during this time with thousands of Americans for various reasons, individually or in groups, on occasion with gatherings of several hundred of them,” said the 82-year-old, who ceded power to his brother Raul when he fell ill nearly three years ago and has not been seen in public since.
“Perhaps influencing the case was not only the tremendous reverse suffered [by the US], but also the news that contacts are being made between the governments of the United States and Cuba on issues of common interest,” he said.
Cuba agreed to resume talks with the Obama administration on legal immigration of Cubans to the US and direct mail services after an overture from the US last month.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
RSS