Free Republic

Ana Montes, who is regarded as "one of the most damaging spies," has been released from a prison in Texas. Montes, now 65, worked for the US Defense Intelligence Agency, or DIA, as the top analyst on Cuba during the Cold War. Washington knew her as the "Queen of Cuba" for her insights into Fidel Castro's communist regime.

HAVANA (AP) — The first member of a Cuban spy ring to walk free from prison in the United States thanked islanders Friday for their support during his 13 years behind bars and vowed to keep pushing for the release of the other four. Rene Gonzalez, a 55-year-old dual U.S.-Cuban citizen who left a federal lockup in the Florida Panhandle on Oct. 7, spoke through a home video that was broadcast and rebroadcast on Cuban state television and government-run websites. "It is truly difficult to address people who are so loved and who you feel a part of through a...

>The conclusion of an agreement to normalize diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba has the White House treading cautiously, especially after bipartisan condemnation from Cuban-American Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez. The latter, who chaired the Foreign Relations Committee until yesterday, accused Barack Obama of “vindicat[ing] the brutal behavior of the Cuban government” and of “set[ting] an extremely dangerous precedent.” Menendez is of course a Democrat and ostensibly an ally of the White House on foreign policy.In anticipation, at least one official in the Obama administration has decided it’s better to share the credit, and preferably with someone whose...

We live not in the civilization of media, but of the mediocre. And from there directly we inhabit the miserable. Cubans desperately need witnesses to our tragedy. In the absence of politicians on the Island, we pin our hopes on any alternative voice: bloggers, musicians, graffiti artists, performers, etc. Just recently a supposed North American hostage has been released. Alan Gross completed his role in the democratic-totalitarian theater of legitimization of the Castro dictatorship. He is now free, but he remains stuck in the labyrinth of his lawyers and the six-figure compensation with which they have invited him to recuperate...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States offered to let a convicted Cuban spy return home in exchange for the release of an imprisoned American, but Cuba rebuffed the offer, U.S. officials said. The U.S. also indicated it would be willing to address other Cuban grievances after Havana had released imprisoned contractor Alan Gross, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the sensitivity of the issue. Cuba rejected the offer, noting that the Cuban, Rene Gonzalez, already had served most of his sentence. It wanted pardons for at least some of the four other Cubans convicted with...

In 2001 a group of Castroite spies in south Florida known as the Wasp Network were convicted of charges ranging from espionage to conspiracy to commit murder (of U.S. citizens.) They were sentenced to terms ranging from 15 years to two life sentences. According to the FBI’s affidavit, the charges against these KGB-trained Communist spies included: • Compiling the names, home addresses, and medical files of the U.S. Southern Command’s top officers and that of hundreds of officers stationed at Boca Chica Naval Station in Key West.• Infiltrating the headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command.This past April, on Obama’s orders,...

SNIPPET: "In October 2009, as a result of successful appeals, a federal judge will reduce the sentences of five convicted spies who were part of the Cuban Wasp Network. Havana regularly refers to the spies as the "Cuban Five." One of the Wasp Network operatives who fled to Cuba, Juan Pablo Roque, abandoned a wife in the United States, whom he married only to obtain cover for his operations in the U.S. Simmons told International News Analysis that he is in process of completing a book about the "Cuban Five" and the cold-blooded manipulation of Ana Margarita Martinez, "the spy's...

ATLANTA - Five men convicted in Miami for being unregistered Cuban intelligence agents are not entitled to a new trial, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. The five argued on appeal that pervasive community prejudice against the Cuban government and publicity surrounding the case prevented them from receiving a fair trial. A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit threw out all the convictions last August, ruling that pretrial publicity combined with pervasive anti-Castro feeling in Miami didn't allow for a fair trial. The government asked the full appeals court to reconsider. The entire 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, with...

A college professor and his wife, a college administrator, have been charged with being longtime illegal agents of Cuban President Fidel Castro, according to documents filed Monday. Carlos Alvarez, a psychology professor at Florida International University, and his wife, Elsa Alvarez, were charged with acting as agents of Cuba without registering with the U.S. government as required, said the documents filed in U.S. District Court. The two were scheduled to make an initial court appearance Monday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrea Simonton, according to the documents. An indictment further describing the charges was expected to be unsealed after that appearance,...

The U.S. government's detaining of Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo naval base in Cuba is supremely ironic given Fidel Castro's long-standing support for global terrorism. As we continue our worldwide battle against terrorists, this sly but significant terror monger on our very own doorstep should not be overlooked. Castro is a bankrupt dictator with a decades-long history of support for violent, anti-American terror groups, obsessive hatred of the U.S., sophisticated spy rings operating on our soil and a potentially deadly biowarfare capability. While he has not been directly linked to the attacks of Sept. 11, considerable circumstantial evidence ties...

<p>DIA senior intelligence analyst Ana Belen Montes originally came under suspicion of being a spy for Cuba's communist government in 1994. However, DIA and FBI counterspies could not prove she was engaging in espionage and Montes continued passing secrets to Havana until she was discovered in late 1999.</p>

Comments: editor@DioceseReport.com One often hears news on short-wave radio not to be found elsewhere. Such is the case of Fr. Geoffrey Dennis Bottoms, a Roman Catholic priest from Lancaster, England. On June 20, Fidel Castro's Radio Havana Cuba (6000 kHz) reported that the British priest was awarded Cuba's highest honor. Fr. Bottoms received the Friendship Medal from Cuban Parliament President Ricardo Alarcón. The 58-year-old priest, a zealous member of the National Executive Committee of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign in Great Britain, said that receiving the Friendship Medal was the highest honor of his life. And why? Says he: "…because working...

The jury that convicted the men did not include any Cuban Americans but was probably influenced by "vicious" anti-Castro sentiment, said Paul McKenna, an attorney for Gerardo Hernandez, said to be the spy group's ringleader. MIAMI (Reuters) - A U.S. lawyers group launched a campaign on Tuesday to free five Cuban spies convicted of plotting against the United States, saying their trial had been tainted by Miami exile politics. A federal jury in Miami convicted the five Cuban and Cuban American men on conspiracy and espionage charges in June 2001. Three were imprisoned for life and the others are...