US presidential hopeful Ted Cruz’s campaign has come under fire from US media following reports the Texas senator’s father raised funds for Fidel Castro.

The ABC news website obtained a list of donors to the Carib-Raiser campaign.

They included Reverend Joseph E. Diorio, who was listed as having raised $1,000 for the campaign in 1973.

Sources told ABC News Mr Diorio was travelling in Cuba at the time.

A spokeswoman for Senator Cruz said it was “disgusting to suggest that Joe Diorio is associated with or sympathises with the Castro family, which has been, and continues to be, an oppressive regime”.

“Ted Cruz has previously condemned the Cold War efforts of the Castro brothers, the principal author of which is Fidel Castro’s brother Raul. In the 1950s, Joe Diorio gave personal money to Juan Almeida, a leading ally of Fidel Castro who later fled to the United States to escape communism.”

The list of donors is also accused of producing the latest in a line of books written on Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

Comrades in Death: A Brutal Haunting by journalist Fabián Alfonso is part of the series.

Alfonso’s book focuses on what he saw as the “rise and fall” of Castro following his fall from power in 1959.

He said: “I’m just a citizen of Cuba, an educated young man who asked questions and felt he was being denied answers.”

Freddy Lugo, former Cuban special forces officer who escaped to the US, has also released a book about Castro.

Cruz’s fundraising was being investigated by the Federal Election Commission after it emerged that the senator’s father Rafael gave $1,000 to a fundraiser in Havana organised by former National Guard leader Fidel Rodriguez, a childhood friend of Fidel Castro.

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