COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST CASTRO

PARIS (AP) A lawyer representing a Cuban exile in France filed a complaint
today against Fidel Castro, accusing Cuba's leader of international
drug-trafficking, judicial officials said.

The complaint was filed with Paris courts by lawyer Serge Lewisch on behalf
of Ileana de la Guardia. She is the daughter of Cuban Col. Antonio de la
Guardia, who was executed in Cuba in 1989 for allegedly smuggling drugs
into the United States, said the officials, who requested anonymity.

Lewisch also filed complaints against Castro on behalf of a French
photographer, Pierre Golendorf, who spent 2 1/2 years in a Cuban jail, and
Cuban artist Lazaro Jordana, jailed for four years for illegally leaving
the country.

Both men accuse Castro of "crimes against humanity," including torture and
murder, the officials said. No further details were immediately available.

The judicial officials said a judge would be required to open an
investigation due to the gravity of the accusations. That investigation
could eventually lead to the filing of criminal charges against Castro.

However, they said it was unlikely the charges of crimes against humanity
would stand because Castro has immunity as a head of state.

In November, a Spanish court rejected petition by a Cuban exile group for a
probe into allegations of genocide, terrorism and torture filed against
Castro.

But the drug-trafficking charges could stand, they said, because French law
respects the immunity of foreign leaders only in cases directly linked to
the sovereignty of the state in question. Drug trafficking would not fall
into that category, they said.

De la Guardia was executed by a firing squad alongside Maj. Gen. Arnaldo
Ochoa, Maj. Amado Padron and Capt. Jorge Martinez. All confessed guilt but
asked for mercy based on their records and contrition.

The drug scandal stunned Castro's communist government, which for years had
denied U.S. accusations that Cuba was being used to smuggle cocaine and
marijuana to the United States.

At the time of the trial, Castro said the scandal had done immense internal
damage and eroded Cuba's international image.

Lewisch charged that the United States knew in the late 1980s that Cuba had
become a major conduit for drugs, and that the Caribbean island was using
the revenue to fight the U.S. trade embargo and fund its forces in Angola.

He said the four officials were scapegoats, executed to deflect accusations
of drug-trafficking away from Castro.

Lewisch, encouraged by Spain's efforts to bring former Chilean dictator
Augusto Pinochet to trial for human rights abuses, said he hoped France
would eventually issue an arrest warrant for Castro.

"French jurisdiction has the competence to investigate these complaints and
deliver an arrest warrant for Fidel Castro," Lewisch told The Associated
Press.

Judicial sources said prosecutors would need to prove that the drugs were
destined for Europe, and France in particular, as Lewisch claims.