Former US ambassador DMITS being a Cuban spy for 40 years
A former US ambassador to Bolivia charged with spying for Cuba for 4 many years advised a choose on Thursday sensationally admitted to the costs and mentioned he’d been gathering data for the rogue state since 1981.
Victor Manuel Rocha, 73, was arrested in December for what US officers known as ‘one of many highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the United States authorities by a international agent.’
Rocha pleaded not responsible two weeks in the past to expenses of conspiring to behave as an agent of a international authorities however he advised Judge Beth Bloom at a pre-trial convention on Thursday that he needed to alter his plea.
A date of April 12 was set by the court docket for Rocha to formally change his plea to responsible and for sentencing.
Rocha was appointed to the function in Bolivia by then-President Bill Clinton in 2000.
Victor Manuel Rocha, 73, was arrested in December for what US officers known as ‘one of many highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the United States authorities by a international agent’
Rocha’s spouse, Karla Wittkop Rocha (left), wouldn’t remark when contacted by the AP. ‘I don’t want to speak to you,’ she mentioned earlier than hanging up
Rocha, a naturalized US citizen initially from Colombia, allegedly started aiding Havana as a covert agent of Cuba‘s General Directorate of Intelligence (DGI) in 1981, and his espionage actions continued till his arrest, in response to US authorities.
Rocha had been dwelling within the Miami-area together with his spouse graphic designer, Karla Wittkop Rocha. The couple has two grownup kids collectively.
Attorney General Merrick Garland, saying Rocha’s arrest, mentioned he had ‘repeatedly referred to the United States as ‘the enemy” and ‘repeatedly bragged in regards to the significance of his efforts.’
Rocha joined the State Department in 1981 and rose by way of the ranks as a profession diplomat, additionally serving in posts in Havana, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, the Dominican Republic and Washington.
This picture supplied by the Justice Department and contained within the affidavit in help of a legal criticism, reveals Manuel Rocha throughout a gathering with a FBI undercover worker
During conferences, Rocha referred to the US because the ‘enemy’ and praised Cuban dictator Fidel Castro
Rocha served on the National Security Council from 1994 to 1995 within the administration of president Bill Clinton and was the ambassador to Bolivia from 2000 to 2002 underneath Clinton and George W. Bush.
He additionally served as an advisor to the US navy command chargeable for Cuba.
The legal criticism towards Rocha particulars how, over a number of conferences with an undercover FBI agent starting in November 2022, he ‘behaved as a Cuban agent,’ praising the communist-ruled island’s late chief Fidel Castro and ‘utilizing the time period ‘we’ to explain himself and Cuba.’
He admitted touring to Havana in 2016 or 2017 to satisfy together with his DGI handlers and requested the spy to ship ‘my warmest regards to the Direccion,’ referring to the DGI, the key intelligence company of Cuba.
Other Americans arrested for leaking secrets and techniques to Havana have included Walter Kendall Myers and Gwendolyn Myers, who had been indicted in 2009 on expenses of spying for Cuba for practically 30 years.
As ambassador to Bolivia, Rocha (proper) intervened instantly into the 2002 presidential race
– ‘Assassinated’ by Cuba –
Rocha moreover faces a lawsuit filed Thursday in Florida by the widow of Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya.
She alleges Rocha was chargeable for the dying of her late husband, the 2002 winner of the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for human rights, in a automotive crash in Cuba in 2012.
A court docket doc claims that ‘the Cuban terrorist dictatorship assassinated Mr. Paya with impunity’ as a direct results of Roche’s ‘actions as a covert agent for the Cuban terrorist dictatorship and its intelligence-gathering mission towards the United States.’
Another Cuban dissident, Harold Cepero, additionally died in the identical automotive crash, whereas two others within the car survived: Spanish politician Angel Carromero and Swedish conservative politician Jens Aron Modig.
Cuban authorities blamed the crash on Carromero, who was driving, however he claims the automotive was struck by a Cuban secret service car.
In a report revealed final June, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) concluded that Cuban state brokers participated within the dissidents’ deaths.
‘I search what I’ve sought all alongside: for the reality, for justice, and for the regime and its accomplices’ to ‘cease appearing with impunity,’ Paya’s widow Ofelia Acevedo mentioned in a press release.
