Former Cuba president and leader of the Communist revolution, Fidel Castro, has died aged 90, state TV has announced.
Fidel Castro ruled Cuba as a one-party state from 1059 to 2008 before handing over the powers to his brother Raul in 2008.
His supporters praised him as a man who had given Cuba back to the people. But his opponents accused him of brutally suppressing opposition.
Castro survived a number of US-backed assassination plots, as well as numerous media reports throughout the years that claimed he was dead.
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.
His death comes the same year Cuba and the United States announced they would restore diplomatic and economic ties.
