Gen. Ochoa Died from ‘Severe Anemia’

HAVANA TIMES — The death of General Arnaldo Ochoa — executed by firing squad in 1989 by the Cuban government — is attributed to a “severe anemia” in the records of the capital city’s Colon Cemetery, according to a book recently published by the writer Rodolfo Torres.

The card contained in the cemetery’s file for the general, a former “hero of the Republic of Cuba,” was reproduced in the book Un cementerio que agoniza (A Graveyard in the Throes of Death), written by Torres in collaboration with historian Magaly Cabrales.

According to a note posted on the Café Fuerte website, the first edition of the book came out in Spain in 1996 in, but it didn’t include documented information related to Ochoa, who along with other military officers was accused of corruption, drug trafficking and high treason. He was subsequently tried and sentenced to death in 1989.