Miami judge awards $1.2 billion in suit against Cuba

MIAMI (Reuters) - A Florida judge awarded nearly $1.2 billion on Friday to a Cuban American former CIA operative who hunted revolutionary Che Guevara, in a lawsuit he brought against Cuba over the suicide death of his father.

The award eclipses past judgments against the Cuban government handed down by courts in Miami, the heart of Cuban exile opposition to the island's communist leadership. But it was not immediately clear if the judgment could be collected.

Gustavo Villoldo, now in his 70s, blamed Guevara, former Cuban president Fidel Castro and others for the death of his father, who killed himself in 1959 after the family's property was seized in the wake of Castro's revolution.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Peter Adrien awarded Villoldo damages of $1.179 billion, a court official said.

"You have brought closure to us after 50 years. Justice has prevailed," the Miami Herald quoted Villoldo as saying following the verdict.

Villoldo's attorneys told the Herald they would try to collect the judgment from frozen assets belonging to the Cuban government. But their prospects for success were uncertain. The frozen accounts in the United States have been depleted by past judgments.

The award far surpassed a judgment of $253 million last year in a wrongful death case brought against Cuba by the family of Rafael del Pino Siero, a U.S. citizen who was a friend of Fidel Castro but turned against him after Castro took power in 1959.

Castro's forces captured del Pino Siero and he died in a Cuban prison cell 18 years later.

The award to del Pino's children bested a $188 million judgment for the relatives of three people killed when a Cuban military jet shot down two small planes belonging to the Miami-based exile group Brothers to the Rescue in 1996.