THE "CUBAN FIVE"

THE "CUBAN FIVE"
2007-11-18. USINFO.STATE.GOV, http://usinfo.state.gov

12 July 2007. Cuban intelligence operatives often misrepresented as
political prisoners. The so-called "Cuban Five" are agents and officers
of Cuba's foreign intelligence service convicted in 2001 of having
committed crimes in the United States as part of a spy group that Cuban
intelligence called the "Wasp Network."

Cuban propaganda describes the "Cuban Five" as victims of American
injustice who merely were compiling public information on U.S.
nongovernmental organizations hostile to Cuba. The facts show a very
different story.

In September 1988, 10 members of the Wasp Network, including the "Cuban
Five," were arrested and accused of crimes under U.S. law in connection
with their covert activity in the United States in the service of Cuba's
Directorate of Intelligence. Five of the accused pleaded guilty, while
the "Cuban Five" fought the charges.

Three of the "Cuban Five" were living in the United States under false
identities, with fraudulent identity documents, and had explicit escape
instructions provided by Cuba's Directorate of Intelligence, including
backup false identities and documentation.

The open, public seven-month-long trial of the five conclusively
established that three of them (Gerardo Hernandez and two men who now
claim their true identities are Ramon Labaniño and Fernando Gonzalez)
were "illegal officers" of Cuba's Directorate of Intelligence. The
three were career intelligence officers who came to the United States
under false identities, using fraudulent documentation and "legends" –
elaborate, false life stories ascribed to those identities. They lived
in the United States, secretly implementing Directorate of Intelligence
operations while pretending to be ordinary U.S. citizens. The three
"illegal officers" supervised the covert work of other U.S.-based agents
of the Directorate of Intelligence – including the other two members of
the "Cuban Five," Antonio Guerrero and René Gonzalez, who are U.S. citizens.

During the trial, U.S. federal prosecutors submitted more than 1,200
pages of detailed communications and reports between Cuba's Directorate
of Intelligence and the "Cuban Five," which were obtained from their
computers in accordance with U.S. court orders and decrypted. These
instructions included directives to covertly penetrate military
installations, governmental agencies including the FBI, a congressional
election campaign, domestic political groups and other nongovernmental
groups. The instructions also included detailed directives on measures
to harass and discredit some of these groups.

At their trial, the defense did not deny the "Cuban Five's" covert
service to Cuba's Directorate of Intelligence, but rather tried to
depict their conduct as one of fighting terrorism and protecting Cuba
against Miami-based "counter-revolutionaries." Nearly three months of
the seven-month trial were dedicated to the defense's presentation of
evidence. The jury rejected the defense arguments and convicted the
defendants on every charge lodged against them.

Two of the three "illegal officers" and one U.S.-based agent (Gerardo
Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero and the man claiming to be Ramon Labaniño)
were convicted of conspiring to commit espionage against the United
States. One of the "illegal officers" (Gerardo Hernandez) was convicted
of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder based on his role concerning
the February 24, 1996, shoot-down of two unarmed civilian aircraft in
international airspace by Cuban Air Force jet fighters, which resulted
in the deaths of four people, three of them U.S. citizens. All of the
"Cuban Five" were convicted of conspiracy to act in the United States as
agents of a foreign government without notification to the attorney
general, and to defraud the United States. Their sentences ranged from
15 years to life imprisonment.

The "Cuban Five" now are serving their sentences in federal
penitentiaries. They are held among, and have the same privileges
available to, the general prison population. They are allowed visits by
families, Cuban government officials and their lawyers. They have
received numerous, lengthy visits from family members, to whom the U.S.
government has issued more than 60 visas, and from Cuban government
officials.

Consistent with the right of the United States to protect itself from
covert spies, the U.S. government has not granted visas to the wives of
two prisoners. One of these women was a member of the Wasp Network who
was deported for engaging in activity related to espionage and is
ineligible to return to the United States. The other was a candidate
for training as a Directorate of Intelligence U.S.-based spy when U.S.
authorities broke up the network.

"CUBAN FIVE" OPERATIONS

The U.S. government court filings in the case recount the various
operations planned by Cuba's Directorate of Intelligence as proved at
trial, several of which are outlined below.

The DI sent illegal officer Ramon Labaniño to Miami to oversee efforts
to penetrate the U.S. military's Southern Command (SouthCom), which had
its headquarters in Miami. In October 1997, Labaniño told two Wasp
Network agents, who later pled guilty, that penetrating SouthCom was the
DI's top priority. Labaniño exhorted them to "EXPLOIT ALL MEANS TO
PENETRATE THIS TARGET. THIS IS THE NUMBER ONE TASK OF THE DIRECTORATE
AND OF OUR COUNTRY AT THE PRESENT TIME …." [The DI required that
reports be written in capital letters, to facilitate future study from
microfilm archives.] This operation was known as Operation Surco.

The goal of another Wasp Network operation, Operation Aeropuerto, was to
penetrate the Naval Air Station (NAS) at Key West, Florida, which is the
closest U.S. military installation to Cuba. DI agent Antonio Guerrero
penetrated the military facility, working in its public works department
since 1993. His annual DI evaluations reported 107 pieces of
information sent in 1996-1997, 104 reports sent in 1995-1996, and 184
reports in 1994-1995. He reported on the quantity and types of aircraft
arriving and departing the base, troop activity and exercises, new
communications installations, base radio frequencies, physical security
procedures, NAS personnel who might be recruited as spies, and other
subjects of interest to Cuban intelligence.

The DI also planned for two Wasp Network agents to penetrate the
re-election campaign of U.S. Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart and to
forward derogatory information to discredit, harass or neutralize
Cuban-American members of Congress.

The Miami-based DI illegal officers were responsible for operations
against the U.S. nongovernmental organization Brothers to the Rescue
(BTTR). Brothers to the Rescue was formed in 1991 to help rescue Cubans
trying to flee the island by raft. It flew small planes looking for
Cuban refugees on rafts. In January 1996, BTTR dropped leaflets in
international airspace, which winds carried over Cuba. The leaflets
cited the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
exhorted Cubans to fight for their rights.

Also in January 1996, the DI launched Operation Scorpion against
Brothers to the Rescue, utilizing illegal officer Hernandez, who gave
directives to Rene Gonzalez and another member of the Wasp Network, Jose
Pablo Roque.

On February 18, 1996, the DI sent a secret, encrypted broadcast with a
message from the head of the DI, personally instructing that under no
circumstances were Gonzalez or Roque to fly with BTTR from February 24
to February 27. Previously, the DI had sent secret, encrypted
instructions prescribing code phrases for Gonzalez and Roque to say over
BTTR's radio should they be unable to evade last-minute requests to join
a BTTR flight.

On February 24, 1996, three BTTR planes were flying in the Florida
Straits. Shortly after they crossed the 24th parallel into
international airspace within the Havana Flight Information Region, two
Cuban military MiG jet fighter aircraft were launched. With directions
from ground command, they pursued and shot down two BTTR planes, killing
the four men aboard. Both BTTR planes were small, unarmed civil
aircraft, in international airspace, heading away from Cuba when they
were shot down. Neither had entered Cuban airspace. The third plane,
piloted by BTTR founder Jose Basulto, escaped.

Shortly after the shoot-down, DI agent Roque held a press conference in
Havana. Pretending to be a disillusioned member of BTTR, he denounced
the organization.

In July 1996, by a vote of 13-0, the United Nations Security Council
condemned Cuba for shooting down the two civilian planes. An
investigation by the International Civil Aviation Authority determined
that both planes had been in international waters when they were shot down.

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov).

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