US releases top Cuba spy Ana Belén Montes after 20 years in prison - The Guardian US

One of the highest-ranking US officials ever proven to person spied for Cuba has been released from situation aboriginal aft spending much than 2 decades down bars.

Ana Belén Montes pleaded blameworthy successful 2002 to conspiracy to perpetrate espionage aft she was accused of utilizing her starring presumption arsenic a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) authoritative to leak information, including the identities of immoderate US spies, to Havana. She was sentenced to 25 years successful situation astatine the property of 45.

Montes, present 65, was released connected Friday, the US bureau of prisons said.

A US national of Puerto Rican descent, Montes began moving for the DIA successful 1985 and rapidly climbed its ranks to go the agency’s apical Cuba analyst.

Prosecutors said during this clip Montes received coded messages from Havana implicit a short-wave vigor arsenic strings of numbers, which she would benignant onto a decryption-equipped laptop to construe to text.

She was accused of supplying the individuality of 4 US spies to Cuba, arsenic good arsenic different classified information.

Montes was arrested connected 21 September 2001, soon earlier the United States invaded Afghanistan. Her lawyer, a starring espionage specialist, said she had cooperated without reservation.

At her sentencing a twelvemonth later, Montes argued that she had obeyed her conscience and that US argumentation to Cuba was cruel and unfair. “I felt morally obligated to assistance the land support itself from our efforts to enforce our values and our governmental strategy connected it,” she said.

Ricardo Urbina, the sentencing judge, ruled she enactment chap US citizens and the “nation arsenic a whole” astatine risk.

On her merchandise from prison, Urbina had ordered Montes should beryllium placed nether supervision for 5 years, with her net entree monitored and a prohibition from moving for governments and contacting overseas agents without permission.

Under the president, Joe Biden, the United States has eased immoderate sanctions connected Cuba but maintained its acold war-era embargo connected the land and stepped up restrictions connected amerciable migrants, arriving successful grounds levels amid raging ostentation and medicine shortages.