Cuban diplomat seeking asylum in Spain
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| Published on Monday, December 17, 2007 |
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MADRID, Spain (AFP): A Cuban diplomat who allegedly aided a dissident doctor in Mozambique has skipped a flight out of Paris to seek political asylum in Spain, Spanish daily El Mundo reported Sunday.
Lorenzo Menendez said he faces prison for helping the dissident but believes socialist Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero will bow to pressure from Havana to deport him.
"I have no other alternative than to ask for asylum in Spain," Menendez told the right-wing paper, who classed himself as "a political and humanitarian victim of a corrupt and painful regime."
Reported to have been the number two figure at Cuba's Mozambique embassy, Menendez said Jose Maria Aznar, Spain's preceding conservative government leader, would have been more sympathetic.
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| Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. AFP PHOTO |
"Had Aznar still been in power, I've no doubt he would have welcomed me to Spain," he said. "But with Zapatero, I sense things may be more difficult. (The Cuban government) will put pressure on Spain to deny my request."
Menendez said the Cuban regime would "present false evidence to portray me as a thief, a criminal or an imposter ... They will try to bring me back by whatever means are necessary, even kidnap."
Zapatero's Cuban policy has been attacked by right-wing opponents since Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos visited Havana in April without meeting opposition politicians on the ground.
Against a backdrop of "serious doubts" expressed by the US government, Madrid said it was pursuing a twin-track approach by engaging with Cuban authorities and society at large. | | | | Reads : 94 |
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