Following the arrest, in England, of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet on charges brought by a Spanish judge, the Cuban American National Foundation, an exile group, asked a Spanish court to seek the arrest and prosecution of Cuban President Fidel Castro. At the time of Pinochet's arrest, Castro was an honored guest at a conference of Latin American presidents that was being held in a Spanish castle.

CANF says Castro, along with his brother Raul and several associates, should be tried on charges of genocide, torture, and terror. The group says its confirmed list of 300 cases of victimization by the Cuban dictator likely will be expanded to include 18,000 cases, including 12 U.S. citizens and five Spaniards. Asked by a reporter from the Spanish daily El Mundo if he feared that an extradition order would be filed against him, too, Castro replied, "I belong to a species which is above arrest. You cannot compare our two cases."

Following the Cubans' lead, a group of Haitian exiles have now called for the extradition of former dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, who, along with his father, Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, they charge with some 60,000 political executions during their combined 29-year regime. Following popular upheaval leading to his ouster in 1986, the younger Duvalier led an extravagant life in exile on the French Riviera. But after his wife divorced him, he gradually ran out of money and was briefly employed by a neighbor as a gardener. Duvalier, whose exact whereabouts are unknown, is reportedly amused at the effort to extradite him.

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