Havana, Cuba.- Descendants of the figureheads of dictator Fulgencio Batista claim to be compensated by the Helms-Burton law, which the United States is currently applying against Cuba in its policy of economic blockade.

The activation of Title III of the Helms-Burton Law, from May 2, seeks, among other things, to grant the right to claim to those who were not US citizens, specifically Cubans, when their properties were nationalized or they left the country, abandoning them early the Revolution.

This is what the newspaper Granma refers to in an extensive article that recalls Batista’s departure in the early hours of January 1, 1959, along with more than a hundred of his ‘main buddies’ and with a good part of the nation’s funds.

Jose Ramon Lopez, is among those hoping to recover properties accumulated during the Batista dictatorship, who claims to be the son of Cuban businessman Jose Lopez Vilaboy.

This is the then owner of Rancho Boyeros Airport, from where the dictator fled, the Cuban Aviation Company, the Colina Hotel and other properties, which the Revolutionary Government sovereignly confiscated, under Title III of the Helms Burton Act, the newspaper underlines.

The Ministry of Recovery of Embezzled Goods, responsible for processing the nationalizations and interventions of ill-gotten properties, opened 27 files to Lopez Vilaboy and his wife for illicit enrichment, as well as 15 other people who appear as their figureheads in companies and businesses.

Fulgencio Batista owned nine sugar mills, a bank, three airlines, a paper mill, a contractor, a road carrier, a gas producer, two motels, several radio stations, a television station, newspapers and magazines, among other possessions.