``His conduct really has been strange,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Alejandro Gonzalez said of Lazaro Betancourt, who defected in April during a visit by Castro to the Dominican Republic.
``We have read the cables and it is completely false,'' said Gonzalez. ``He was never a member of Fidel's'' personal security team.
Betancourt was ``never a member of the armed forces and never attended a military academy,'' Gonzalez added. Betancourt has been identified since his defection as a 20-year military veteran who obtained the rank of army captain.
Gonzalez said that Betancourt belonged to a government commando team charged with securing areas around the president, but was never part of his personal guard.
Castro's personal guard ``is made up of a reduced group of companions, many of whom began very young,'' Gonzalez said. He said many of them have worked for Castro for more than 15 years.
During his first public appearance since his desertion, Betancourt told a news conference in Miami on Tuesday that he would use his knowledge of Castro's inner circle to help exiles in the United States bring political change to the island.
The news conference was organized by the Cuban-American National Foundation, an influential anti-Castro exile group.
The foundation enlisted Betancourt's help to seek retribution for the downing of two civilian planes flown by members of the Miami-based exile group Brothers to the Rescue.
Four men died Feb. 24, 1996, when Cuban fighter jets attacked the unarmed planes off the Cuban coast.
Betancourt said the shootdown order had to come from a top government official but he did not know who gave the go-ahead. He would not give other details about what he might know.
Betancourt sought asylum at the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo on April 16 while Castro attended a meeting of the Association of Caribbean States.
© Copyright 1999 The Associated Press