Fidel Castro, Cuban former president and leader of historic 1959 revolution, dies aged 90

Fidel Castro, Cuba’s former president and leader of the Communist revolution, has died aged 90, his brother has said.

“The commander in chief of the Cuban revolution died at 22:29 hours this evening (04:29 CET Saturday),” President Raul Castro said.

Fidel Castro ruled Cuba as a one-party state for almost 50 years before Raul took over in 2008.

His supporters said he had given Cuba back to the people. But he was also accused of suppressing opposition.

Aged 30, Fidel Castro, as the leader of the 26 July Movement, led a revolution against the Batista regime in Cuba from 1956 to 1959, fighting in the Cuban jungle where he gradually built up support from campesinos before taking Santa Clara and major military garrisons.

Ashen and grave, President Castro told the nation in an unexpected late night broadcast on state television that Fidel Castro had died and would be cremated on Saturday.

There would now be several days of national mourning on the island. Preparations by the Cuban Communist party and state apparatus had been in place for his death for several years. Castro underwent emergency intestinal surgery in July 2006 and had ceded power to his brother, Raúl, who remains in control of the country.

Raul Castro ended the announcement by shouting the revolutionary slogan: “Towards victory, always!”

Barring the occasional newspaper column, Fidel Castro had essentially been retired from political life for some time, the BBC’s Will Grant in Havana reports.

In April, Fidel Castro gave a rare speech on the final day of the country’s Communist Party congress.

He acknowledged his advanced age but said Cuban communist concepts were still valid and the Cuban people “will be victorious”.

“I’ll soon be 90,” the former president said, adding that this was “something I’d never imagined”.

“Soon I’ll be like all the others, “to all our turn must come,” Fidel Castro said.

Castro temporarily handed over the power to his brother in 2006 as he was recovering from an acute intestinal ailment.

Raul Castro officially became president two years later.

Throughout the Cold War, Fidel Castro was Washington’s bête noire.

An accomplished tactician on the battlefield, he and his small army of guerrillas overthrew the military leader Fulgencio Batista in 1959 to widespread popular support.

Within two years of taking power, he declared the revolution to be Marxist-Leninist in nature and allied the island nation firmly to the Soviet Union.

Yet, despite the constant threat of a US invasion as well as the long-standing economic embargo on the island, Castro managed to maintain a communist revolution in a nation just 145 miles off the coast of Florida.

Despised by his critics as much as he was revered by his followers, he outlasted ten US presidents and defied scores of attempts on his life by the CIA.

Castro with (left) celebrated writer and journalist Ernest Hemingway

Commander-in-chief Fidel Castro: throughout his lifetime he survived numerous assassination attempts on his life by the CIA

One of the earliest photos of Castro, left, with the young Che Guevara, as they get ready to leave a Mexican jail. The two men would sail to Cuba aboard the Granma in 1956.

With Che Guevara, the other inspirational figure of the Cuban revolution.

A young Fidel Castro, glory always on his mind, he plotted against the overthrow of the Batista regime and his gangsterismo from an early age

Castro’s passing will likely stir mixed emotions for many Cuban expatriates, who both simultaneously respect and resent him.
Over 50 years ago, his guerrilla army of “bearded ones” replaced Fulgencio Batista’s corrupt dictatorship with a communist rule that challenged the US and turned the island into a cold-war focal point.

FIDEL CASTRO • Timeline

• 1926: Born in the south-eastern Oriente Province of Cuba
• 1953: Imprisoned after leading an unsuccessful rising against Batista's regime
• 1955: Released from prison under an amnesty deal
• 1956: With Che Guevara, begins a guerrilla war against the government
• 1959: Defeats Batista, sworn in as prime minister of Cuba
• 1961: Fights off CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion by Cuban exiles
• 1962: Sparks Cuban missile crisis by agreeing that USSR can deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba
• 1976: Elected president by Cuba's National Assembly
• 1992: Reaches an agreement with US over Cuban refugees
• 2008: Stands down as president of Cuba due to health issues