Oscar Espinosa Chepe, Cuban economist-turned-dissident, dies in Spain at age 72

MADRID – A Cuban human rights group says Oscar Espinosa Chepe, a high-level Cuban economist and diplomat who broke with Fidel Castro's government in the 1990s and was imprisoned for dissident activities, has died in Spain. He was 72.

Espinosa was one of 75 writers and political activists locked up in 2003 during the Black Spring, a crackdown on dissent that provoked international criticism and EU sanctions.

The Cuban Human Rights Observatory says he died Monday in Fuenfria Hospital in Cercedilla, just north of the Spanish capital. The group added he had been in Madrid since March receiving treatment for a liver ailment.