Cuban spy due for release from US jail to be deported, lawyer says
The United States is set to release Cuban national Fernando Gonzalez after he served 15 years in prison for espionage and plans to deport him to Havana
A Cuban intelligence agent, jailed for 15 years for spying on Cuban-American exiles in Miami, is due to be freed by the US next month and will be deported to the Caribbean island country, his lawyer said on Wednesday.
Fernando Gonzalez, 50, was arrested by the FBI in 1998 along with four other Cuban agents who were convicted in 2001 of 26 counts of spying on behalf of Fidel Castro’s government.
The case of the “Cuban Five” is widely considered an impediment to improving the hostile relations between the United States and Cuba, separated by only 145 kilometres of sea.
Gonzalez, who also goes by the name Ruben Campa, was sentenced to 19 years, which was reduced on appeal in 2008 due to good behaviour.
He is due to be released from a jail in Arizona on February 27 and moved to an immigration facility before deportation, according to his Miami lawyer Richard Klugh.
“He has agreed to deportation and it is our understanding that this will take place swiftly after his release,” he said.
A US immigration official confirmed the situation late on Wednesday, saying “as soon as Gonzalez has finished his criminal incarceration he will be removed from the country”.
