DHAKA: Cuba’s air force chief, Major General Pedro Mediondo, was killed in a car crash.

The military announced Tuesday, reports The Voice of Russia.

Mediondo (68) was at the wheel of the vehicle at the time of Sunday’s crash, which also left his wife severely injured and killed her parents, the ministry of the armed forces said.

Mediondo died of ‘traumas suffered in the accident’, the ministry said in a statement published by the Communist Party newspaper Granma.

The ministry provided no details on where the crash occurred or the circumstances surrounding it.

Mediondo, a veteran of two tours in Angola in the 1980s, was named chief of the communist-ruled island’s air force and air defence system in 2000.

He joined the armed forces in 1983 and was trained at a military academy in the former Soviet Union.

The ministry praised his ‘vast experience and training’ and ‘meritorious revolutionary trajectory and service’ to the country.

BDST: 1956 HRS, AUG 27, 2013
RoR/RK