Friday, January 12, 2007

HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters): Cuban dissident Manuel Valdes Tamayo, who was jailed in a political crackdown in 2003 and released for medical reasons, died of a heart attack at the age of 50, a fellow dissident said on Thursday.

Valdes Tamayo had visas to join his family in exile, but he was denied a permit to leave Cuba by the island's communist government, dissident leader Martha Beatriz Roque said.

He died on Wednesday night while in intensive care in a Havana hospital, she said.

Roque and Valdes Tamayo were among 75 dissidents who Cuban leader Fidel Castro ordered arrested in a March 2003 round up aimed at keeping the lid on a nascent opposition movement.

He was sentenced to 15 years in prison, but was released a year a later due to his failing health. Sixteen of the 75 jailed dissidents have been freed on medical parole, but only two have been allowed to leave Cuba.

Police continued to harass Valdes Tamayo, who was picked up for interrogation several times in October last year and was beaten in the street by government agents, Roque said.

Cuban exiles in Miami called his death a political murder by Castro's government.

"The murder of Valdes Tamayo is another crime against humanity that the Castro brothers will have to answer for," said Congressman Lincoln Diaz Balart, a Florida Republican.

Castro, 80, was forced to hand over power to his brother Raul, 75, in late July after emergency surgery for intestinal bleeding and has not reappeared in public since.

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