Ana Belen Montes pleaded responsible in 2002 for conspiracy to commit espionage after she was accused of utilizing her main place as a Protection Intelligence Company (DIA) official to leak data, together with the identities of some US spies, to Havana. She was sentenced to 25 years in jail at the age of 45.
One of many highest-ranking US officers ever confirmed to have spied for Cuba has been launched from jail early after spending greater than twenty years behind bars.
Montes, now 65, was launched on Friday, the US bureau of prisons mentioned.
A US citizen of Puerto Rican descent, Montes started working for the DIA in 1985 and quickly climbed its ranks to turn out to be the company’s high Cuba analyst.
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Prosecutors mentioned throughout this time Montes acquired coded messages from Havana over a short-wave radio as strings of numbers, which she would sort onto a decryption-equipped laptop computer to translate to textual content.
She was accused of supplying the identification of 4 US spies to Cuba, in addition to different categorized data.
Montes was arrested on 21 September 2001, shortly earlier than America invaded Afghanistan. Her lawyer, a number one espionage specialist, mentioned she had cooperated without reservation.
At her sentencing a yr later, Montes argued that she had obeyed her conscience and that US coverage to Cuba was merciless and unfair. “I felt morally obligated to assist the island to defend itself from our efforts to impose our values and our political system on it,” she mentioned.
Ricardo Urbina, the sentencing decision, dominated she put fellow US residents and the “nation as an entire” in danger.
On her launch from jail, Urbina had ordered Montes needs to be positioned beneath supervision for 5 years, together with her web entry monitored and a ban from working for governments and contacting overseas brokers without permission.
Below the president, Joe Biden, America has eased some sanctions on Cuba however maintained its chilly war-era embargo on the island and stepped up restrictions on unlawful migrants, arriving in the report ranges amid raging inflation and medication shortages.
