MIAMI, United States. – When Ana Belén Montes was accused and prosecuted for espionage, Fidel Castro he still ruled the island. Although the issue of the American spy never made headlines in the Cuban press, the dictator alluded to it at least once.
On December 12, 2002, during a tour of the University of Informatics Sciences (UCI) with American journalist Andrea Mitchell, said:
“A noble and good American person who is against an injustice, against a blockade of more than 40 years, against all the terrorist acts that were committed against Cuba, and is capable of reacting in this way, is a exceptional person (…). He is a person who, given this attitude and not out of a simple matter of gratitude, but out of a sense of justice, deserves respect and admiration”.
After more than two decades in prison, at the beginning of 2022 Ana Belén Montes was released.
Montes, who was the highest-ranking spy for the Cuban regime on US soil, at the time of her capture was working as an analyst for the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). From this position, she leaked information of interest to the Island’s regime, including the identities of some American spies.
The former agent was arrested on September 21, 2001. A year later, she was tried in a trial where she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
As has been revealed in the sentencing documents, Montes justified his actions by saying that he had done what he believed was fair.
“I felt morally obligated to help the Island defend itself from our efforts to impose our values and our political system on it,” she declared.
Donald Murphy, an official with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, confirmed to America TeVe that for reasons of privacy and security, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) does not discuss the conditions of confinement of Belén Montes, including her state of health or plans for her release.
Who is Ana Belen Montes?
Ana Belén is a US citizen of Puerto Rican descent, who was captured by the Cuban intelligence services.
In 1985 she began working for the DIA, where she became the agency’s main analyst on Cuba, for which she had access to privileged information.
According to the investigations into the case, Montes received coded messages from Havana through a wave radio. She would then decipher this series of numbers on her computer. Through her cooperation with the Cuban dictatorship, she put the lives of US citizens at risk.
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