Former US ambassador will be sentenced this Friday in Miami for espionage for Cuba

Former US ambassador Víctor Manuel Rocha will be sentenced this Friday in a federal court in Miami on charges related to espionage for Cuba for 40 years after pleading “guilty” today, as announced by his defense last February.

Rocha, 73, is specifically charged with one count of “acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government (Cuba)” and one count of conspiracy to commit the same crime and “defraud the United States.”

He also has five counts of wire fraud, three for “making a false statement in a passport application,” four for “use of a passport obtained by a false statement” and one for “false statements and representations,” according to the court document. accusation.

In general, he is accused of “acting secretly for decades as an agent of the government of the Republic of Cuba.”according to the US Government’s accusation.

Last Tuesday, the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance (ARC), a coalition of exile groups inside and outside Cuba, held a rally in front of a federal court in Miami to ask for a “maximum sentence” against Rocha.

“Rocha not only betrayed the United States, the country in which he served, but he may have had high complicity in crimes against humanity,” Sylvia Iriondo, president of the exile group MAR for Cuba, told EFE at the time.

The former diplomat, of Colombian origin, arrested in Miami last December, will have a hearing this Friday afternoonin which in addition to pleading guilty he will be sentenced by Judge Beth Bloom.

Initially, the former ambassador had pleaded not guilty in February to the charges against him.

Rocha was arrested in Miami on December 1 after confessing his activities to an FBI agent who posed as a Cuban spy.

Between 1981 and 2002, Rocha was employed by the US Department of State and held various positions at the US embassies in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, MexicoArgentina and Bolivia.

According to the indictment, between 2022 and 2023 there were three meetings between Rocha and an FBI special agent who pretended to be ‘Miguel’, a representative of the General Directorate of Intelligence of Cuba.

In these meetings, which were recorded and held in Spanish, the former diplomat constantly referred to the United States as “the enemy” and confessed that his greatest concern when he worked for the State Department was “strengthening the Cuban Revolution.”