12/19/2014
Spy Freed by Cuba in Swap for “Cuban Five” Members Worked for CIA
WASHINGTON – The spy released by Cuba in exchange for the three agents with the so-called “Cuban Five” who were convicted of espionage and imprisoned in the United States in 2001 worked for the CIA, has been identified as Rolando Sarraff Trujillo and is of Cuban origin, several U.S. media outlets reported Thursday.
The first information about Sarraff Trujillo’s identity was published by Newsweek magazine, who confirmed that he is a cryptographer who worked for the Cuban Interior Ministry and, secretly, for the CIA until he was arrested in 1995.
After announcing his release, neither the U.S. government nor Havana made public his identity and the White House said only that he was an intelligence agent who had been imprisoned on the communist island for almost 20 years.
According to U.S. government officials cited by the daily Washington Post, Sarraff Trujillo’s release was a priority for U.S. intelligence services as part of the agreement with Cuba.
Without mentioning his identity, a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency said that the agent played “a decisive role” in the identification of several Cuban spies on U.S. territory.
According to various media outlets, Sarraff Trujillo had provided key information leading to the arrest of the so-called “Cuban Five” in the United States.
Sarraff Trujillo’s release was agreed to in exchange for freeing Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino and Antonio Guerrero, the three Cuban agents still in prison in the United States.
Those three men, along with Rene Gonzalez and Fernando Gonzalez, were arrested in 1998 by U.S. authorities when the FBI busted the Cuban “Wasp” espionage network in South Florida.
All five men admitted that they were “undeclared” agents of the Cuban government, but they said they were spying on “terrorist exile groups” who were conspiring against Cuban then-President Fidel Castro and not the U.S. government.
On Wednesday, U.S. citizen Alan Gross was also released after serving more than five years of a 15-year prison sentence in Cuba for subversive activities, but he was not part of the prisoner swap and was released “on humanitarian grounds,” the White House said.
All the prisoner releases took place within the framework of the historic agreement between U.S. President Barack Obama and his Cuban counterpart Raul Castro to begin a process to normalize bilateral diplomatic relations, which were broken in 1961.
source
Spy Freed by Cuba in Swap for “Cuban Five” Members Worked for CIA
WASHINGTON – The spy released by Cuba in exchange for the three agents with the so-called “Cuban Five” who were convicted of espionage and imprisoned in the United States in 2001 worked for the CIA, has been identified as Rolando Sarraff Trujillo and is of Cuban origin, several U.S. media outlets reported Thursday.The first information about Sarraff Trujillo’s identity was published by Newsweek magazine, who confirmed that he is a cryptographer who worked for the Cuban Interior Ministry and, secretly, for the CIA until he was arrested in 1995.
After announcing his release, neither the U.S. government nor Havana made public his identity and the White House said only that he was an intelligence agent who had been imprisoned on the communist island for almost 20 years.
According to U.S. government officials cited by the daily Washington Post, Sarraff Trujillo’s release was a priority for U.S. intelligence services as part of the agreement with Cuba.
Without mentioning his identity, a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency said that the agent played “a decisive role” in the identification of several Cuban spies on U.S. territory.
According to various media outlets, Sarraff Trujillo had provided key information leading to the arrest of the so-called “Cuban Five” in the United States.
Sarraff Trujillo’s release was agreed to in exchange for freeing Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino and Antonio Guerrero, the three Cuban agents still in prison in the United States.
Those three men, along with Rene Gonzalez and Fernando Gonzalez, were arrested in 1998 by U.S. authorities when the FBI busted the Cuban “Wasp” espionage network in South Florida.
All five men admitted that they were “undeclared” agents of the Cuban government, but they said they were spying on “terrorist exile groups” who were conspiring against Cuban then-President Fidel Castro and not the U.S. government.
On Wednesday, U.S. citizen Alan Gross was also released after serving more than five years of a 15-year prison sentence in Cuba for subversive activities, but he was not part of the prisoner swap and was released “on humanitarian grounds,” the White House said.
All the prisoner releases took place within the framework of the historic agreement between U.S. President Barack Obama and his Cuban counterpart Raul Castro to begin a process to normalize bilateral diplomatic relations, which were broken in 1961.
source
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