Spanish Report Says Castro in Grave State After Failed Surgery

Fidel Castro may not recover from complications after three failed operations to treat an intestinal infection, a Spanish newspaper reported yesterday.

The Cuban leader was in a "very grave" condition from surgery for diverticulitis, which created pouches in his large intestine, as well as a serious infection of his stomach lining, according to the Madrid daily El País. The report, the most detailed since the 80-year-old first had surgery last July, cited two unnamed sources from Madrid's Gregorio Marañón hospital.

One of the hospital's most senior surgeons, José Luis García Sabrido, treated Mr Castro in Cuba last month and later told reporters the patient did not have cancer and was slowly recovering from surgery. The doctor did not respond to yesterday's report but his secretary told Reuters that he stood by his statement. "Nothing has changed since he spoke in December, nothing at all."

A Cuban diplomat in Madrid called the report a lie. The island's authorities have treated their leader's condition as a state secret but insisted he will return to power. His brother Raúl, 75, is acting as interim president.

After months of speculation, with US officials openly suggesting their communist foe had cancer, the El País article was notable for its technical detail.

Mr Castro's intestine bled copiously last summer, it said, prompting the removal of part of his large intestine. "His condition, moreover, was aggravated because the infection spread and caused peritonitis, inflammation of the membrane that covers the digestive organs."

During a second operation to clean up the infection doctors removed the remainder of the large intestine and created an artificial anus. But this operation also failed and Mr Castro's bile duct became inflamed, leading to cholecystitis, an inflammation of the gall bladder that can be fatal.

When Mr Garcia Sabrido was called in last month Mr Castro was losing more than a pint of fluids a day via an abdominal wound and needed intravenous feeding, El País said. A South Korean-made prosthetic device which was unsuccessfully implanted in the bile duct was said to have been replaced with a Spanish-made one.

In a separate report Reuters quoted an unnamed diplomat with close relations to Havana saying that Mr Castro's stitches had not healed properly and that last month the problem required him to be taken to the operating room seven times in a single day.