Cuba accuses US of inventing spy threats — RT World News
Havana claimed that Washington was trying to justify spending more taxpayer money on an aggressive foreign policy
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Eduardo Rodríguez Parrilla alleged that the United States falsely accuses other countries of espionage while it itself conducts widespread espionage.
Rodriguez made the comments on Thursday, the same day that the former US ambassador to Bolivia, Victor Manuel Rocha, admitted in a Florida court to spying for the communist government in Havana.
“The United States government, which spies and violates the privacy of citizens…is more likely to invent a foreign threat than to spy on data.” The Cuban diplomat wrote on X (formerly Twitter), without mentioning Rocha directly.
“What will come next is more fundraising between [the US] taxpayers and new aggressive steps against third countries.” Rodriguez argued.
Rocha was arrested in Miami, Florida, in December on suspicion of working for Cuban intelligence services for more than four decades.
The 73-year-old has held various senior positions in the US State Department since 1981, including serving as Washington's ambassador to Bolivia between 2000 and 2002. After leaving the diplomatic service, he became an advisor to the head of the US Southern Command. , whose jurisdiction covers Central and South America and the Caribbean.
Investigators allege that Rocha, a Colombian-born man, was recruited by intelligence agents in Havana in 1973, several years before he became a US citizen. He was charged with secretly transmitting information to the Cuban government.
Rocha had a high-level security clearance that allowed him access to sensitive data, according to the indictment. But the US authorities did not reveal the type of sensitive data he provided to Cuba.
In conversations with FBI agents posing as Cuban officers, the former diplomat allegedly said so “The first priority was… any action by Washington that would put people's lives in danger [Cuban] Leadership, or the revolution itself.”
During a hearing in federal court in Miami on Thursday, Rocha agreed to plead guilty to two counts of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government. In exchange, prosecutors agreed to drop more than a dozen other charges against him, the Associated Press reported.
The former diplomat now faces up to ten years behind bars. He is scheduled to appear in court in mid-April.
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