The World - News from July 25, 1989

U.S. officials, in informal private conversations beginning in early 1988, reportedly advised senior Cuban officials that the United States had solid evidence of high-level Cuban government involvement in drug trafficking to Florida, according to diplomats in Havana. On July 9, President Fidel Castro accused the United States of failing to inform Cuba of drug-smuggling allegations. Four Cuban officers were executed July 13 for smuggling drugs. In another development, Cuba’s Granma newspaper reported that a former transport minister, Diocles Torralbas, has been convicted on corruption charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He apparently was not linked to drug dealing.