Fidel Castro says al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is a bought-and-paid-for CIA agent who always popped up when former President George W. Bush needed to scare the world, arguing that documents recently posted on the Internet prove it.
"Any time Bush would stir up fear and make a big speech, bin Laden would appear threatening people with a story about what he was going to do," Castro told state media during a meeting with a Lithuanian-born writer known for advancing conspiracy theories about world domination. "Bush never lacked for bin Laden's support. He was a subordinate."
The comments were published in the Communist Party daily Granma on Friday. Castro even predicted the global conflict would mean cancellation of the final rounds of the World Cup last month in South Africa. He later apologised for jumping the gun. Last week, he began highlighting the work of Daniel Estulin, who wrote a trilogy of books highlighting the Bilderberg Club, whose prominent members meet once a year behind closed doors.
The secretive nature of the meetings and prominence of some members including former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, senior US and European officials, and major international business and media executives have led some to speculate that it operates as a kind of global government, controlling not only international politics and economics, but even culture. During the meeting, Estulin told Castro that the real voice of bin Laden was last heard in late 2001, not long after the September 11 attacks. He said the person heard making warnings about terror attacks after that was a "bad actor."