Xinhua English

HAVANA, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- Cuba on Thursday condemned a U.S. court ruling that ordered the island nation to pay compensation worth 2.8 billion U.S. dollars to Cuban exile Gustavo Villoldo.

"This reward marks a record in the long list of extravagant sentences issued by the courts in Miami against the island," the Cuban official daily Granma said in an editorial.

It shows that the U.S. "not only hosts terrorists, but also rewards them," the newspaper said.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Beatrice Butchko on Wednesday ruled in favor of the compensation claim filed by Villoldo, who Cuba says is a retired spy of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Granma said Villoldo had confessed he led an attack on the coastal Cuban town of Boca de Sama in 1971 in which four people died and several others were injured.

"The former CIA agent claims to have captured the legendary Cuban-Argentine guerrilla commander Ernesto 'Che' Guevara," said the editorial.

According to Cuban sources, Villoldo worked for the CIA, which trained him in clandestine missions specifically aimed at killing Guevara. The missions had continued until Guevara was killed in Bolivia in 1967.