<i>Celia Sanchez: Was she Fidel Castro's lover?</i>

Few doubt that the female revolutionary Celia Sanchez played a key part in the life of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, but just how intimate the two of them really were is a debate still going on, 30 years after her death.
Celia Sanchez was at the heart of the Cuban revolution for over two decades and after meeting Fidel Castro in 1957, she became his indispensable aide.
There has been speculation they were lovers. But neither Sanchez when she was alive, nor Castro, ever addressed the rumours. Outside Cuba, little has been written about the role Celia Sanchez played until her death in 1980.
The two first met in 1957, but Sanchez had already played a crucial part in Castro's life.
After Castro made a disastrous landing in Cuba from Mexico in December 1956, it was her clandestine network of peasant families that was critical to the rebels' survival.
Celia Sanchez Manduley was born in 1920. She grew up in the tropical east of Cuba, known as Oriente.
When Fulgencio Batista took power in Cuba for the second time following a coup in 1952, Sanchez - like millions of Cubans -was outraged.
In July 1953, Castro made his first attempt to topple Batista, and attacked the Moncada barracks in Santiago. Sanchez joined Castro's July 26th Movement.
By 1957, in Batista's Cuba, Sanchez was the country's most-wanted woman. When it became too dangerous for her to remain on the plains, she joined Castro up in the Sierra Maestra.
When Castro came to power in 1959, Sanchez remained his most valuable aide, and worked alongside him until her death.
Since she died of lung cancer in 1980, Sanchez has become an icon in Cuba. She is seen as someone who, above all, was devoted to the ideals of the revolution and to Castro. She never had a husband and there is no evidence she had any romance after the 1950s.
But in Miami, 92-year-old Huber Matos - one of Castro's comandantes in the guerrilla movement - tells a different story: "I went to Costa Rica to look for arms to take to the Sierra Maestra.
"When I returned in 1958, there was Celia Sanchez beside Fidel Castro and I realised their relationship wasn't just political, but intimate too."
But today in Cuba, Huber Matos is viewed by many as a man not to be trusted. He is a disgraced former comandante, who served 20 years in jail for treason and sedition.