The eldest son of Fidel Castro, the late Cuban revolutionary leader, has taken his own life, according to state media.

Fidel Ángel Castro Díaz-Balart, a nuclear scientist known as 'Fidelito' - or Little Fidel - due to his resemblance to his father, was found dead in Havana.

The 68-year-old had been suffering from depression.

State television in Cuba reported that he had been receiving medical treatment as an outpatient in recent months, following a hospital stay.

"Fidel Castro Díaz-Balart, who had been treated by a group of doctors for several months due to deep depression, took his life," Cuba's official newspaper 'Granma' reported.

A nuclear physicist trained by the former Soviet Union, Mr Castro Díaz-Balart was a scientific adviser for the Cuban Council of State at the time of his death.

Mr Castro Díaz-Balart, who had the highest public profile of all Castro's children, was born in 1949 out of the former leader's brief marriage to Mirta Díaz-Balart.

The younger Castro was very popular in Cuba, although he had never held a political position. Many Cubans remember him as a little boy dressed in an olive drab military uniform, accompanying his father on January 8, 1959, as he entered Havana triumphantly after the revolution.

Irish Independent