Cuban dissident's daughter: I was told of another car involved in crash

Posted on Thursday, 02.28.13

Cuban dissident's daughter: I was told of another car involved in crash
BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

The daughter of Cuban dissident Oswado Payá said Thursday that the
Spanish politician convicted in her fathers' death told her in person
that another vehicle rammed his — and that Payá first survived the accident.

Angel Carromero "confirmed the events that we had already alleged," Rosa
Maria Payá told El Nuevo Herald by phone from Madrid after a news
conference in which she laid out details of the allegation that Cuban
security agents caused the fatal accident.

Payá said her meeting with Carromero was not recorded, and that she
expects the Spaniard, on parole in Madrid while serving the four-year
sentence imposed by a Cuba court for vehicular homicide, will speak
publicly about the case when he's ready.

Carromero has not spoken in public about the fatal accident July 22 but
recorded a video with Cuban prosecutors in which he stated that his car
ran off the road but made no mention of a ramming by another car.
Friends in Madrid say he has claimed that his memory of the crash was
fuzzy because of the heavy painkillers he received at a Cuban hospital
after the accident rash.

According to Payá's daughter, Carromero confirmed to her that another
vehicle rammed the rented car he was driving from behind and forced it
off the road near the eastern city of Bayamo. Aboard were Carromero,
Payá and fellow dissident Harold Cepero and Swedish politician Jens Aron
Modig.

She added that Carromero claimed he had no memory that his car went off
the road and smashed into a tree — the Cuban government version of the
crash. That version also maintains that Payá died immediately and Cepero
died hours later in a hospital.

Carromero told her that men in a third car stopped at the site of the
accident and drove away the two Europeans while the two Cubans remained
behind.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/02/28/3259101/cuban-dissidents-daughter-i-was.html#storylink=misearch