Survivors of crash that killed Cuba's Paya say it was accident

By Rosa Tania Valdes
HAVANA | Mon Jul 30, 2012 7:36pm EDT

(Reuters) - Two European politicians who survived a car crash that killed prominent Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya said on Monday that no other vehicle was involved and denied suggestions they had been deliberately forced off the road.

Their versions appeared to support the Cuban government's description of the accident, contradicting suggestions by Paya's family and some fellow dissidents that another vehicle may have hit the car from behind to cause the crash. They have called for an international investigation.

The government views opposition members as subversives trying, with outside help, to topple the communist system. Dissidents say they are routinely monitored and harassed by state security agents.

The driver, Spaniard Angel Carromero, said in a video shown to reporters in a Havana press conference that he lost control of the small rental car on a patch of highway under repair and unpaved on July 22 in Granma province 480 miles southeast of Havana.

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