|
The Miami
Herald. Posted on Fri, Mar. 14, 2003.
Former Cuban intelligence officer arrested in Dade
By Alfonso Chardy and Michael Vasquez. Achardy@herald.com
Homeland Security agents on Thursday arrested a motel clerk on charges he
failed to formally advise federal authorities that he had been an intelligence
officer in Cuba before coming to the United States.
Lázaro Amaya La Puente, a night-shift clerk at the Le Jeune Motel on
Southwest Eighth Street, was picked up by agents of the Department of Homeland
Security's bureau of immigration and customs enforcement, one of three bureaus
that replaced the Immigration and Naturalization Service on March 1.
On Thursday night, his family and employer angrily reacted to the arrest.
''This is the type of thing that happens in Cuba, not the United States,''
said Raul Soberon, the motel manager. "Lázaro is hard-working,
innocent, and wanted nothing more than to stay in the United States and bring
his wife and two children here.
''This is an awful injustice,'' he said.
Amaya La Puente, 39, is the latest in a growing list of suspects with
alleged Cuban intelligence connections arrested or convicted in South Florida
and elsewhere in the country in recent years.
The most prominent recent case involved Ana Belén Motes, a senior
U.S. military intelligence officer in Washington, sentenced to 25 years in
federal prison on espionage charges in October. In 2001, a federal jury in Miami
convicted five Cubans on 23 spying-related charges stemming from a federal
investigation of a South Florida Cuban spy ring known as La Red Avispa -- the
Wasp Network.
Homeland security officials in Miami would not say if Amaya La Puente had
done any spying in the United States. Dan Vara, a Homeland Security district
counsel in Miami, said the charge against Amaya La Puente was failure to
disclose his past connections to Cuban intelligence.
FAILED TO REGISTER
Vara said Amaya La Puente failed to register with the U.S. attorney's office
as a foreign agent within 30 days of arriving in the country -- as the law
requires. Amaya La Puente arrived in 2000.
Ana Santiago, a homeland security spokeswoman, said in the written statement
that Amaya La Puente was a ''former agent of the Cuban Ministry of Interior,'' a
Cuban cabinet office that oversees state security and intelligence operations
for the government of Fidel Castro.
Amaya La Puente allegedly conducted operations against the U.S. diplomatic
mission in Havana and human rights advocates on the island, the statement said.
It added that federal agents had been investigating Amaya La Puente for the last
six months.
''As a former operative of the Cuban state security service, Amaya had been
involved in conducting intelligence gathering operations against human rights
activists and U.S. interests section personnel in Cuba before coming to the
United States,'' the statement said. "U.S. authorities learned of this
information about Amaya, well after he entered the U.S. in 2000.''
The statement did not say how U.S. immigration officials learned of Amaya La
Puente's intelligence past.
'THAT'S WHY HE LEFT'
Soberon, his boss, said the government must have learned about his past from
an asylum application. He said he helped Amaya La Puente translate to English
the asylum application where he explained his past work for the Cuban government
and why he could never return to the island.
Soberon said Amaya La Puente told him that one of his jobs was to monitor
who entered the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. Soberon said Amaya La Puente
said he fled Cuba because the government kept pressuring him to come up with
more information and he would not. ''That's why he left Cuba,'' Soberon said.
Adriana Hermida, Amaya La Puente's cousin in Hialeah, said he has a wife and
two children -- a 12-year-old boy and an 8-year-old girl -- in Cuba. She said
Amaya La Puente did tell the U.S. government of his intelligence past when he
applied for asylum.
''I think he was too honest,'' Hermida said, adding that her cousin felt
pressured by Cuban authorities to conduct intelligence operations.
Amaya La Puente is now in custody at the Krome detention center in west
Miami-Dade. He will remain there pending further proceedings in immigration
court. Vara said Amaya La Puente will face deportation proceedings. No criminal
charge has been filed.
''We will continue to identify and apprehend others like Amaya,'' said James
Goldman, Florida district director for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs
Enforcement. "The safety and well-being of our community and our nation is
not negotiable.''
Soberon said Amaya La Puente was no threat to national security: He worked
double-shifts at the busy motel, greeted couples, collected their cash, assigned
them rooms, and cleaned up afterward. ''What little money he made he would try
to send back to his wife and his children,'' Soberon said. "He lives for
his family.''
Sickly rafters brought ashore
Coast Guard picks up nine Cubans who then tell officers
they took pills
By Jennifer Babson. jbabson@herald.com. Posted on Fri, Mar. 14, 2003 in The
Miami Herald.
When a Coast Guard boat intercepted them Thursday, nine Cuban rafters were
facing the same disappointing fate as thousands of others caught on the open
sea: a trip back to the island.
Then they told Coast Guard officers they had taken pills.
Not long after, they began to look very ill.
So worried officers took them all to shore near Islamorada, where ambulances
rushed them to hospitals.
A few hours later, all nine were doing fine -- and they were on American
soil. Their apparent momentary sickness had gotten them into the United States.
Under the government's ''wet foot/dry foot'' policy, Cubans intercepted at
sea are generally returned home. But those who make it to land -- no matter how
they get here -- are allowed in.
The Coast Guard intercepted Thursday's migrants -- who were in a small boat
with an engine -- about 5:30 p.m. near Alligator Reef, a few miles off
Islamorada.
By 6:45 p.m., they were ashore and ready to be transported to hospitals in
Tavernier and Marathon.
''Their medical condition was serious enough for the Coast Guard personnel
on scene to think that a medical evacuation was the prudent thing to do,'' said
Tony Russell, a Coast Guard spokesman.
Desperate measures by Cuban migrants and others facing interdiction off
South Florida's shores to reach land are not typical, but are not unheard of.
In the past, Cuban migrants have been known to swallow glass or gasoline in
hopes of forcing a medical trip to shore; in other cases, smugglers or their
passengers have drawn machetes or held small children over the sides of boats to
try to scare authorities.
No one knew Thursday night what had happened to the Cubans -- if anything.
''They were sick from something that they allegedly ingested, we are not
sure what that is yet,'' said William Wagner III, Islamorada's fire chief.
''They were lethargic, they looked sick, they were obviously not
healthy-looking,'' Wagner said of the migrants, four of whom were deemed to be
in ''critical'' need of medical attention.
The group included ''a couple of young adults,'' according to Wagner, but no
children. The migrants were believed to have been at sea for several days.
By Thursday night the migrants were chatting with doctors, and by all
accounts were doing just fine.
It still wasn't clear when the group would be placed in federal custody for
immigration processing.
A few hours earlier, fate was pointing them south -- back to Cuba on a Coast
Guard cutter.
Not now. | 
