By IANS
Paris : Spain is considering the asylum request of Cuban diplomat Lorenzo Menendez, Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos has said.
“There are some mechanisms and some legal procedures in Spain. They will be studied and a response will be made,” the minister told reporters Monday on the sidelines of the Palestine Donors Conference in Paris, Spain’s EFE news agency reported Tuesday.
Moratinos said that the Cuban diplomat submitted his request Monday, and he will be given a response soon.
Several media outlets reported that Menendez, who served as political counsellor at the Cuban embassy in Mozambique, requested asylum in Spain after being threatened with punishment for helping an opponent of the Cuban President Fidel Castro.
The diplomat recently slipped away from Cuban security agents during a stopover in Paris and made his way to Madrid, where he said he wanted to request asylum.
“I have no other alternative than to ask for asylum in Spain,” Menendez had said recently to a Spanish newspaper and called himself “a political and humanitarian victim of a corrupt and painful regime”.
Menendez said the Cuban regime would “try to bring me back by whatever means are necessary, even kidnap”.