Cu­ba's Am­bas­sador to Trinidad and To­ba­go has re­ject­ed re­cent ac­cu­sa­tions against for­mer Cuban pres­i­dent Raúl Cas­tro, de­scrib­ing them as base­less and part of ef­forts by the Unit­ed States to jus­ti­fy in­creased hos­til­i­ty to­wards the Caribbean na­tion.

Speak­ing at a cer­e­mo­ny mark­ing the birth­days of Cuban na­tion­al hero An­to­nio Maceo and rev­o­lu­tion­ary leader Ernesto "Che" Gue­vara on Sat­ur­day, the am­bas­sador said both men re­mained sym­bols of Cu­ba's fight for sov­er­eign­ty and in­de­pen­dence.

The am­bas­sador not­ed that Gue­vara fought along­side Raúl Cas­tro dur­ing the Cuban Rev­o­lu­tion and de­fend­ed Cu­ba's ac­tions in pro­tect­ing its ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty, cit­ing re­peat­ed vi­o­la­tions of Cuban air­space in the 1990s.