The former American diplomat Victor Manuel Rocha faces 15 criminal chargesamong them that of spy for the Cuban regimeaccording to the accusation unveiled this Wednesday by the Federal Court of Miami.
Court documents presented in the last few hours indicate that Rocha, 73, faces a charge of act as “illegal agent of a foreign government” and another for conspiracy of that same crime and “defrauding the United States”said an agency office EFE.
The maximum sentences for the 15 charges would total 60 years in prison, if found guilty.
Rocha’s hearing that had been scheduled for this Wednesday in a Miami court – the second after his arrest on December 1 – was postponed by Judge Edwin G. Torre to next Tuesday the 12th, the date on which they will be formally presented all accusations.
The indictment also includes five charges of electronic fraudthree to make one false declaration to obtain a passportfour for “use of a passport obtained through a false declaration” and one for “false statements and representations”.
The attorney general Merrick B. Garland stated that such actions “expose one of the most far-reaching and longest-running infiltrations of the US government by a foreign agent.”
For more than 40 years, from 1981 to the present, Rocha, of Colombian origin and naturalized from the United States in 1978, allegedly secretly supported the Republic of Cuba.
His clandestine mission was collect US intelligence serving as an undercover agent of the General Directorate of Intelligence of Cuba (DGI), the text of the accusation states.
In order to fulfill that role, between 1981 and 2002, the diplomat sought and obtained positions in the United States government that provided him access to classified information and the possibility of affecting American foreign policy.
From 1994 to 1995 he was director for Inter-American Affairs at the National Security Council, with special responsibility, among other things, for Cuba. Between 1995 and 1997 he served as deputy director of the US Interests Section in Havana. He was the top U.S. diplomat in Argentina between 1997 and 2000, and ambassador to Bolivia from 2000 to 2002. He was also a member of the International Council on Terrorism led by Henry Kissinger.
The former diplomat was arrested in Miami after confessing his activities to an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who posed as another Cuban spy.
According to the indictment, between 2022 and 2023, Rocha and an FBI special agent who pretended to be “Miguel,” a representative of the DGI of Cuba, held three meetings.
During these meetings, which were recorded and held in Spanish, the former ambassador showed himself to be a Cuban agent, constantly referring to the United States as “the enemy” and using the term “we” to describe himself and Cuba.
Rocha too praised the figure of Fidel Castrowhom he called “the Commander,” and referred to his contacts in Cuban counterintelligence as his “colleagues.”
