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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS