Arnold Rodriguez Camps, an early follower of Fidel Castro who took part in the 1958 kidnapping of race-car driver Juan Manuel Fangio on the eve of Cuba’s Grand Prix, died in Havana of serious illness, state-run media said Friday. He was 80.

Rodriguez Camps entered the struggle against the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship in 1952, was a militant in the 26th of July Movement where he held local and national positions in propaganda activities, and directed the clandestine newspaper Revolucion.