1 year ago
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CNN —
An American national convicted of spying for Cuba, Ana Montes, has been released from US national situation successful Fort Worth, Texas, according to Federal Bureau of Prison online records.
Cuba recruited Montes for spying successful the 1980s and she was employed by the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency arsenic an expert from 1985-2001. She was yet promoted to beryllium the DIA’s apical Cuba analyst.
The FBI and DIA began investigating her successful the autumn of 2000 but, successful effect to the September 11, 2001 panic attacks, she had entree to plans for US attacks against Afghanistan and the Taliban.
On September 21, 2001, Montes was arrested successful Washington, DC, and charged with conspiracy to present defence accusation to Cuba.
In aboriginal 2002, she was sentenced to 25 years successful situation aft pleading blameworthy to espionage. The justice who sentenced Montes ordered her to beryllium supervised connected merchandise from situation for 5 years.
Regarding Montes’ release, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio slammed Montes for betraying the US and assisting Cuba’s communist regime.
“Americans should retrieve Ana Belén Montes for who she truly is, contempt the information that she has served her clip successful prison. If we hide this spy’s story, it volition surely repetition itself,” Rubio said successful a connection released connected Saturday.
Ana Montes, present 65, was known arsenic the Queen of Cuba, an American who for implicit a decennary and a fractional handed implicit truthful galore US subject secrets to Havana that experts accidental the US whitethorn ne'er cognize the afloat grade of the damage.
In 1984, Montes was moving a clerical occupation astatine the Justice Department successful Washington and studying for a master’s grade astatine Johns Hopkins University.
She often recovered herself railing against President Ronald Reagan’s enactment for rebels warring pro-communist regimes successful Central America.
“She felt that the US didn’t person the close to enforce its volition connected different countries,” said FBI Special Agent Pete Lapp, the antheral who yet led the probe against Montes, and yet arrested her.
Her choler astir US overseas argumentation analyzable her relationships and drew the attraction of Cubans who enticed her to crook her backmost connected friends, household and her ain country.
Someone astatine Johns Hopkins noticed Montes’ passionate views astir Cuba and soon she was introduced to recruiters, and agreed to assistance the Cuban cause.
At astir the aforesaid time, Montes applied for a occupation astatine the Defense Intelligence Agency, wherever workers grip US subject secrets connected a regular basis. When she started determination successful 1985, the FBI says she was already a afloat recruited Cuban spy.
One nighttime successful 1996, Montes was called to consult astatine the Pentagon during an ongoing planetary incident, but she broke protocol by failing to stay connected work until dismissed. This raised suspicion.
Four years later, DIA counterintelligence serviceman Scott Carmichael heard the FBI was looking for a mole – an unidentified spy wrong the DIA who was moving for Cuba.
The fishy had traveled to the US Naval Base astatine Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, astatine a circumstantial time. When helium looked up a database of DIA employees who visited Gitmo during those dates, a acquainted sanction popped up – Ana Montes.
“The infinitesimal I saw her name, I knew,” Carmichael said.
After that, Carmichael and FBI cause Lapp teamed up to beryllium that the DIA’s Queen of Cuba was truly a spy.
Thanks to “very sensitive” intelligence, it was known that the unidentified DIA mole had bought a circumstantial brand, marque and exemplary of machine astatine a circumstantial clip successful 1996 from an chartless store successful Alexandria, Virginia.
Lapp was capable to find the store’s archetypal grounds that linked that machine to Montes, confirming their beliefs.
English (US)