Pants On Fire For Castro

Pants On Fire For Castro
Updated: 12:47, Friday March 24, 2006

Cuba's Fidel Castro has such a burning desire to survive assassination
he sets his pants on fire.

He is so fearful of being bumped off he orders his underwear to be burnt
rather than sent to the laundry where it could be infused with lethal
chemicals.

The outlandish claim is made by his former bodyguard Delfin Fernandez
who has gone through a litany of the socialist dictator's quirks on US
television.

Castro's underwear protection may not be all that strange, however.

According to the Havana Museum, he has survived 639 murder bids since
coming to power in 1959.

These include the famous exploding cigar, a poison syringe hidden in a
pen and a gun disguised as a TV camera.

Mr Fernandez, who fled Cuba in 1999 and has worked as a bodyguard for
David Beckham and Antonio Banderas, is a regular on TV in Florida where
his claims about Castro's indiosyncracies have kept Cuban exiles
entertained.

Among those claims are Castro's love of an exclusive ham, which Mr
Fernandez says he was sent to Spain to collect, and his order to compile
blackmail dossiers on foreign businessmen.

Mr Fernandez, 44, also accuses Castro's brother, Raul, of being a crook
who has robbed the country of millions.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-13515545,00.html?f=rss