MIAMI – A Florida congresswoman acknowledged Saturday calling for Fidel Castro's assassination after earlier claiming a video clip of her making the comments was fake.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said she has not seen the unedited footage of her interview, which appears in a 28-second clip on the Internet by the makers of a new British documentary, "638 Ways to Kill Castro."
In it, Ros-Lehtinen says: "I welcome the opportunity of having anyone assassinate Fidel Castro and any leader who is oppressing the people."
Earlier this month, the Havana-born lawmaker said filmmakers spliced clips together to make the sound bite. On Saturday, she backed away from that statement.
"If those words were said by me in the raw unedited version, then I said them," she said in a telephone interview Saturday. "I don't recall those exact words, but I do a lot of interviews and a lot of documentaries on Fidel Castro. It's an everyday situation for me."
Ros-Lehtinen, who was recently tapped to become the top Republican on the House International Relations Committee, said she was referring to the YouTube clip at the time, which shows her voice out of sync with her mouth movements.
Despite the controversy, the lawmaker said Saturday she "would welcome (Castro's) passing."
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