Castro accuses Spain, EU of "vilifying" Cuba over death

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro accused Spain and the rest of the European Union of launching "a smear campaign" against the government in Havana over last week's death of a prominent dissident after a 50-day hunger strike.

In a column published on Wednesday, Castro said Spain was governed by a Popular Party (PP) administration whose leaders were "admirers of Franco."

"The Spanish government and the ramshackle European Union, mired in a deep economic crisis, should know what to expect," wrote Castro in reference to the death of Wilman Vilar on January 20.

Castro accused Spain of "vilifying" Cuba and blaming the government in a "smear campaign" he says the PP has launched in Brussels. On Wednesday, the PP announced that it would ask the EU to officially condemn the Cuban government for allowing Vilar to die.

Vilar had been sentenced to four years and went on a hunger strike while in prison.

"We cannot overlook the fact that the new government in Spain is filled with admirers of Franco," Castro wrote in his weekly Reflections By Fidel column. "Aznar is truly the biggest fascist as well as Rajoy and the rest of the servants of the imperialist United States."

Castro stepped down in 2006 after a long illness.