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The senior Cuban military officer and president of one of the largest state business conglomerates on the island, Luis Alberto Rodriguez Lopez-Callejadied this Friday of a cardiorespiratory arrest, official media reported.
López-Calleja, born in 1960, was the former son-in-law of Raúl Castro, division general, advisor to Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, member of the political bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC, the only legal one) and executive president of the Grupo of Business Administration (Gaesa) of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR).
The official media ‘Granma’, ‘Cubadebate’ and ‘Juventud Rebelde’ spoke of “deep sorrow” for the death of López-Calleja -considered a key man in the country, although frequently in the background- of whom they highlighted “a brilliant sheet of services to the homeland and the Cuban revolution».
As reported on its website by the PCC, López-Calleja worked for the Ministry of Foreign Trade, the FAR (Revolutionary Armed Forces) and military counterintelligence, in addition to Gaesa. He was a member of the party’s central committee since 2011 and since last year he has also belonged to its hard core, the political bureau.
He also participated in the Economic Policy Commission since its creation in 2006 and in 2011 headed the Cuban Government’s commission for attention to the Mariel Special Development Zone, an economic promotion project.
As a student, he held various positions in the Student Federation of Secondary Education (FEEM) and was a member of the Union of Young Communists (UJC). He completed his university studies in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) with a Gold degree.
military counterintelligence
He began his work activity in the Ministry of Foreign Trade and later in the Ministry of the FAR (Minfar), where he served as the minister’s liaison with the ministry’s Economic Collaboration department. Later he was head of section and department.
In 1990 he began to provide services in military counterintelligence and, like many Cuban soldiers, he carried out an internationalist mission in the People’s Republic of Angola.
In 1996, he was appointed to direct the Business System administered by the Business Administration Group, which brings together tourism, foreign and domestic trade entities, among others.
He received the first class Ignacio Agramonte medals, second class Internationalist Combatant, for the Cuba-RPA Victory, Combatant for Production and Defense, as well as distinctions for FAR Service.
Born on January 19, 1960 in the municipality of Santa Clara, in the central province of Villa Clara, he leaves two daughters of his marriage to Débora Castro Espín, eldest daughter of Raúl Castro.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism