Fidel Castro's eldest son has committed suicide at the age of 68, Cuban state-run media has reported.

Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart is said to have taken his own life on Thursday morning following a long period of hospital treatment for depression.

Diaz-Balart, a nuclear physicist, had been released from care after several months and had been continuing treatment outside hospital when he died.

Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart (pictured) killed himself on Thursday morning after being treated for months for depression , Cuban state-run media reported

'Diaz-Balart, who had been attended by a group of doctors for several months due to a state of profound depression, committed suicide this morning,' state official website Cubadebate said.

The son of the late Cuban revolutionary leader was known as Fidelito (Little Fidel) due to his stark resemblance to his father.

Diaz-Balart, Castro's eldest son, was the most educated of the president's children and became one of the country's top nuclear scientists before his father sacked him.

Castro Diaz-Balart had been working as a scientific counselor to the Cuban Council of State and Vice-president of the Cuban Academy of Sciences at the time of his death.

The now-deceased leader's son had a troubled upbringing amid his father's adultery and reign of power in Cuba.

Diaz-Balart was also known as Fidelito (Little Fidel) because of how much he looked like his father, and was admitted to hospital over the severity of his mental illness

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro (right) and his son Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart (second left) attend a meeting with others, in Havana, Cuba August 23, 2010

Castro's elder son, former nuclear physicist Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart (right), next to his father, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, during the Havana Book Fair opening in 2002

Castro, who died in November 2016, cheated on both his wives.

His first, Mirta Diaz-Balart, whom he wed when he was still a law student, gave him a son, Fidelito.

Through his mother, Fidelito was the cousin of some of his father's most bitter enemies in the Cuban American exile community, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart and former US congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart.

However, after she divorced him, Castro cruelly engineered for the boy to visit him in Mexico and never let his ex-wife have the child back.

Born on September 1, 1949, Fidelito was educated in Moscow and graduated from the Higher Institute of Science and Technology in the former USSR.

He was the most educated of Castro's children, and became a top Cuban nuclear scientist and an adviser to the Council of the State of Cuba.

From 1980 to 1992, he was head of Cuba’s national nuclear program, and spearheaded the development of a nuclear plant on the Caribbean’s largest island until his father fired him.

Who was Fidel Castro? Revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, a towering figure of the 20th century who built a Communist-run state on the doorstep of the United States and defied U.S. efforts to topple him, died aged 90 on November 25 2016. The Cold War icon formally ceded the presidency to his younger brother, Raul Castro, in 2008 due to ill health. Cubans say his death changed little on the island. By the time of his death, Castro had been out of the public limelight since an intestinal ailment nearly killed him in 2006, occasionally writing columns and receiving foreign dignitaries at his home. His death plunged Cuba into nine days of national mourning. A funeral cortege carried his ashes on a three-day journey from Havana to his final resting place in the east of the island, where he had launched the Cuban revolution. 'I am Fidel' became a nationwide chant, as many Cubans pledged to stay faithful to the revolution he led that in 1959 overthrew a U.S.-backed dictator. In keeping with his wishes to avoid a personality cult, no statues have been made of Fidel or public places named after him in Cuba. Even his tomb is a sober affair, a large granite boulder in Santiago de Cuba's Santa Ifigenia Cemetery with a plaque simply reading 'Fidel'. Advertisement

Cuba halted its plant plans that same year because of a lack of funding after the collapse of Cuba’s trade and aid ties with the ex-Soviet bloc and Castro Diaz-Balart largely disappeared from public view, appearing at the occasional scientific conference.

His death came just over a year after that of his father on Nov. 26, 2016, aged 90.

After Fidel Castro's death, his brother, Raul, assumed the presidency.

Raul Castro, 86, was originally set to step down in February after two consecutive terms, ending nearly 60 years of Castro brothers’ rule and marking a transition from the leaders of the 1959 revolution to a new, younger generation.

But the Communist-run government extended the term of its current leadership to April, signaling a two-month delay in the historic handover from Raul Castro to a new president

The National Assembly, however, said that devastation wrought by Hurricane Irma in September had caused a delay to the start of the political cycle in which voters and electoral commissions pick delegates of municipal, provincial and national assemblies who then select a Council of State and president.

Fidelito's death came just over a year after that of his father on Nov. 26, 2016, aged 90. An urn carrying the ashes of Fidel Castro is seen above in Santiago, Cuba on December 4, 2016

After Fidel Castro's death, his brother, Raul (center), assumed the presidency. Raul Castro, 86, will step down in April after two consecutive terms, ending nearly 60 years of Castro brothers’ rule in Cuba

As a result, the assembly, which is holding one of its twice-yearly meetings, extended its term through to April 19.

'When the National Assembly is constituted, I will have concluded my second and last mandate, and Cuba will have a new president,' Castro said, according to state-run media.

'All that is left for me is to wish you and our people a happy new year,' he said.

Castro, who officially took over the presidency from Fidel in 2008, is set to remain head of the Communist Party, the only legal party in Cuba and its guiding force.

His heir apparent, First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel, 57, was born the year after the revolution but has argued for the need to defend its achievements and provide continuity.

A SECRET WEDDING, TWO WIVES AND AT LEAST 10 CHILDREN: CASTRO'S WOMANIZING WAYS Castro was known to be a womanizer who fathered as many as 10 children, telling an interviewer once that they formed a 'tribe.' Throwback to May 2006: A political rally in Havana sees several members of Castro's family attend. Identified by their respective numbers, they are: #1: Alejandro Castro, son, computer expert; #2: Antonio Castro, son, orthopedist, Cuban baseball team doctor; #3: (no name available), grandson, son of Angel Castro; #4: Angel Castro, son; #5: Dalia Soto del Valle, wife and family administrator, teacher; #6: Mirta Castro, granddaughter, daughter of Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart; #7: Alexis Castro, son, mechanic, Mercedes-Benz specialist. The remaining people are friends and bodyguards Castro married his first wife Mirta (Myrta) Diaz-Balart in 1948 after they met at college. They had one child together - a boy named Fidelito (or Little Fidel) in 1949. They later divorced in 1955 reportedly because of him cheating on her. Reports say she went on to marry 'one of his sworn political enemies', a man named Emilio Nuñez Blanco, and lived with him in Spain leaving their son in Cuba with Castro. Castro pictured with his son Fidelito in Havana circa 1960 He is thought to have married second wife Dalia Soto del Valle in a secret wedding in 1980. She was his companion since 1961 and they had five boys together between 1962 and 1974. Del Valle was a teacher and the couple were not often seen in public together. She appeared on Cuban TV for the first time in 2001. Fidel Castro's son Alejandro Castro Soto del Valle (L), and his mother, Dalia Soto del Valle (R), Castro's second wife, and another unidentified woman Former Cuban President Fidel Castro (R) talks with his wife Dalia Soto del Valle, during a special session of the Cuban Parliament, on August 7, 2010 in Havana Castro had a daughter, Alina Fernandez, with mistress Natalia Revuelta in 1956. Revuekta was an aristocrat who Castro met while married to his first wife. She donated money and aided Castro and his opposition movement. Alina left the Cuba in 1993 using false papers and now lives in the US. Alina Fernandez Revuelta (L), daughter of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and her daughter Alina-Maria Salgado-Fernandez (R) toast the New Year with champagne, after being reunited in the United States after Alina-Maria left Havana early December 31 1993 for Miami In excerpts of The Double Life of Fidel Castro by Juan Reinaldo Sanchez in the New York Post it was reported that he cheated on both of his wives. 'He cheated on the first with the very beautiful Havanan Natalia Revuelta and on the second with 'comrade' Celia Sanchez, his private secretary, confidante and guard dog for 30 or so years,' said The Post. Still grab from a video taken on January 8, 2014 of former Cuban president Fidel Castro (C) and his wife Dalia Soto (L) during the inauguration of the nonprofit cultural center Kcho Romerillo, Laboratory for Art in Havana Source: Heavy.com Advertisement

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