CIA hired mobsters to kill Castro, show documents

Communist officials say there have been more than 600 documented attempts to kill Castro over the decades. Now 80, Castro has not been seen in public since handing power to his younger brother Raul while recovering from intestinal surgery last July.

But in a letter published Monday, the elder Castro claimed without providing details that US President George W Bush had “authorised and ordered” his killing.

And while Cuban government officials didn’t return a call seeking reaction on Tuesday, but the pending release of the newly declassified CIA documents had already been noted in state media.

“Upon the orders of the White House, the CIA tried to assassinate President Fidel Castro and other leaders,” the Communist Party’s newspaper Granma said on Saturday. “What was already presumed and denounced will be corroborated.”

Other aborted US attempts to kill Castro, who rose to power in January 1959 in a revolution that ousted dictator Fulgencio Batista, have been noted in other declassified documents.