HAVANA -- President Fidel Castro on Thursday flatly denied a report that he had been treated in October for a potentially fatal brain ailment, calling the story ``a lie from beginning to end.''

The story published Sunday in The Herald quoted a Cuban surgeon hiding in Costa Rica who said that Castro, 71, was rushed to a hospital Oct. 22 with symptoms of hypertensive encephalopathy, a traumatic rise in blood pressure that can cause a stroke.

The doctor, Elizabeth Trujillo Izquierdo, said she was part of an elite medical team that treated Castro at the Medical Surgery Research Hospital (CIMEQ) in Havana. Her comments came in an interview last week in Costa Rica, where she said she had arrived in April, seeking political asylum. On Thursday, she told El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish-language newspaper published by The Herald, that she stands by her story and her credentials.

``That surgeon does not exist,'' Castro said during an unusual interview in Havana with foreign news agencies at the close of the National Assembly's regular session.

``I was never hospitalized in the CIMEQ; I have never even gotten an X-ray in that hospital,'' he said.

``Someone must have invented the whole thing,'' Castro said.

``The woman who says she is a surgeon is not even a doctor and has never worked in any hospital,'' Castro said. ``Someone fooled El Nuevo Herald, and it fooled millions of people.''

El Nuevo Herald said it confirmed from several sources that Trujillo had worked as a surgeon at CIMEQ. Trujillo showed El Nuevo Herald documents from the University of Havana certifying that she was a physician specializing in plastic surgery.

Castro gave reporters a three-page preliminary report from an official investigation into the allegations that he was hospitalized.

According to the report, Trujillo left nursing school before graduating and worked as a secretary at a research center before leaving Cuba for Colombia with her husband in 1995.

`He knows that he's lying'

Trujillo, reached by phone Thursday at her hiding place in Costa Rica, challenged Castro's comments.

``He knows that he's lying, that we've touched a raw wound, and that's why he has reacted in that violent manner,'' she said. ``I am most anxious to get out in the open and speak publicly, but I'll wait a few days until my protection can be confirmed.''

Trujillo said her surgeon's diploma was issued by the University of Havana on March 30, 1987, and bears the registration number 4354, folio 143. The document was recorded in folio 527 at the university, under number 14413, she said.

She acknowledged that she had left Cuba for Colombia in 1995, but denied she had remained out of the island since then.

``I wish that had been true,'' Trujillo said Thursday. ``I could have been spared all those final months in Cuba, inside that regime.''

She said that she worked in Colombia in 1995 and 1996 under contract with the Cuban government and that she returned to the island in 1996.
 

Showed diplomas

During the interview last week, Trujillo showed El Nuevo Herald her University of Havana diplomas as general surgeon and specialist in plastic surgery. The diplomas bore a stamp of authentication issued last month by the Cuban consul in Nicaragua, Lionel Martinez, in one of his weekly trips to San Jose, where there is no Cuban embassy.

El Nuevo Herald reported that it had confirmed with other sources that Trujillo worked as a surgeon for CIMEQ. It said those sources include a Cuban doctor living in Miami who said he knew Trujillo when she worked at CIMEQ. The doctor asked that his name not be published because he has relatives in Cuba and fears that his statement could create problems for them.

Trujillo said last week that Castro remained at CIMEQ from Oct. 22 to Oct. 28 and that he was re- admitted two days later for another two days. Later, in a telephone interview, she said her dates might not be exact, but that they were within ``one day, more or less.''

`No one will believe'

Castro told the foreign correspondents Thursday that on Oct. 25 he met for six hours with Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the Vatican's press chief, who was visiting Havana.

``The day I die, no one will believe it,'' Castro said, scoffing at the number of times that grave illnesses -- even his death -- have been reported during his nearly 40-year rule.

In August 1997, there were rumors that Castro was extremely ill because he had not been seen publicly for some time, but on Sept. 1 he gave a speech that lasted nearly an hour during a downpour.

El Nuevo Herald staff writer Pablo Alfonso contributed to this report.