By Juan O. Tamayo. jtamayo@herald.com.
The Miami Herald, April 11,
2002.
A top Cuban spy who defected in Panama two weeks ago has been brought to the
United States for debriefings on Havana intelligence operations in Canada,
America and Panama, U.S. and Panamanian officials say.
Orlando Brito Pestana, whose identity was previously undisclosed, was
stationed in the early 1990s in Canada, a critical Cuban intelligence post
because of its access to the unguarded U.S. border.
The FBI later blocked his way when Havana tried to appoint him to the Cuban
Interests Section in Washington, U.S. officials added.
Brito was accredited as Cuba's commercial attaché in Panama when he
asked Panamanian security officials on March 27 to help him, his wife and two
daughters defect to America, a senior Panamanian security advisor said.
He was flown to the United States two days later aboard a commercial
airliner, using false travel documents arranged by U.S. and Panamanian
officials, the security advisor said on condition of anonymity.
Brito is believed to be one of the most senior Cuban intelligence officials
to defect in recent years. It is a blow to Havana intelligence operations
already battered by the capture of confessed spy Ana Belén Móntez
at the Pentagon last year and several members of the ''Wasp Network'' in Miami
in 1998.
Two U.S. government officials with access to intelligence data said Brito is
undergoing debriefings by U.S. intelligence officials that could last for
months, depending on the value of his knowledge.
But an FBI official who has handled Cuban spy cases warned that Brito may
also be a double-agent sent by Havana to misinform.
''Cuba has one of the most aggressive intelligence operations in the world,
and until we know more he will probably be treated as a potential double
agent,'' the official said.
A State Department spokesman said he could not confirm Brito's presence in
the United States. The usual CIA procedure is to keep foreign defectors under
wraps while they are debriefed in isolation.
Foreign Minister José Alemán has said the Cuban Embassy
reported Brito's disappearance in mid-March and asked Panamanian authorities to
cancel his diplomatic identification card and drivers' license.
LINKED TO SCANDAL
The Panamanian security advisor said Brito may have decided to defect
because of a scandal in Panama involving Sunset Group International, a
Panamanian firm that has run an auto dealership in Havana and financed part of
Cuba's sugar harvest since the mid-1990s.
The firm is wracked by a bitter dispute within the family of its owners,
allegations that it bribed Panamanian Congressmen and reports that Cuba is
investigating it for corrupting Cuban officials in Havana.
Sunset President Martín Rodin told reporters in Panama on Tuesday
that the Cuban government owed him about $30 million for car purchases and sugar
harvest loans.
''As the commercial attaché here, this guy would have been up to his
eyeballs in this stuff and maybe thought it was time to pick up and run,'' said
the Panamanian official, who asked that his name not be published.
Panamanian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mauricio Benaim said Brito had not
asked for political asylum in Panama. ''It is curious that he simply
disappeared,'' he said in a telephone interview from Panama City.
Brito, believed to be in his early 50s, first came into the limelight when
he served as vice consul in Montreal. On Feb. 13 1994, Canada expelled him and
another Cuban diplomat for spying.
The Toronto Sun newspaper at the time identified Brito as head of Cuba's
intelligence office in Canada, a key post because of Canada's strong commercial
ties with Havana and Cuba's use of Canadian territory as a base from which to
handle intelligence agents inside the United States.
U.S. officials said they could not confirm whether Brito was the office
chief or a lower ranking agent.
INTELLIGENCE CENTERS
''Canada and Mexico are always important Cuban intelligence centers because
of their access to the U.S. border -- in the case of Canada so easy to
infiltrate,'' said Carlos Cajaraville, a former Cuban intelligence agent who
defected in 1995.
About two years after his expulsion from Canada, Cuba's Foreign Ministry
notified the State Department that it planned to appoint Brito to the Cuban
Interests Section in Washington, U.S. congressional officials said.
But FBI counter-intelligence officials persuaded the State Department to
deny Brito a visa, arguing that it would look foolish to accept a Cuban diplomat
already branded a spy and expelled by Canada, the aides said.
Brito was named commercial attaché at the Cuban Embassy in Panama
City last year, in charge of monitoring trade links between Cuba and Panama,
especially with companies in the Colon Free Zone, an area at the Atlantic
gateway to the Panama Canal.
Cuba has long used Havana-owned and Panamanian firms in the duty-free zone
to get around the 40-year-old U.S. trade embargo and purchase U.S.-made
products, from computers to industrial air conditioners for hotels.
The Cuban Embassy in Panama has declined comment on the Brito case. But a
person who answered the telephone at the mission Wednesday said, "we don't
talk about traitors.'' |