Fidel Castro Appears in Public for First Time in More Than a Year

Aging former Cuban president Fidel Castro emerged in public for the first time in 14 months.

Official media released images of Castro on Saturday, showing him meeting with a group of visiting Venezuelans last Monday. The images show Castro, wearing a baseball cap and windbreaker, shaking hands from inside a vehicle. It was unclear why the visit at a Cuban school was not reported earlier.

Castro hadn’t appeared in public since well before President Barack Obama and Castro’s brother, President Raul Castro, moved to normalize relations between the two countries in December. Obama and Raul Castro are expected to meet in person at the Summit of the Americas next week.

According to the Cuban media report, the former president, 88, was “full of vitality.”