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Posted on Fri, Jun. 21, 2002 in
The Miami Herald.
Spy suspect denies role for Castro
U.S. wants to deport him
By Alfonso Chardy and Luisa Yanez. achardy@herald.com.
Accused Cuban spy Juan Emilio Aboy on Thursday adamantly denied federal
allegations that he was a covert agent for the Fidel Castro government and a
member of a Cuban spy ring dismantled by the FBI in Miami four years ago.
''Someone is trying to frame me,'' Aboy, 41, said in his first interview
since federal immigration agents arrested him May 30 at his southwest Miami
home. "I never came to this country to spy. Never in my life, did I come
here to spy. No one sent me here to spy. The government of Cuba did not send me
here to spy. I escaped from Cuba on a boat.''
Aboy, a Soviet-trained military diver in Cuba, spoke at the Krome detention
center minutes after appearing at his first major hearing before an immigration
judge where attorneys from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service laid
out the specific allegations against him.
According to a document in which the INS lists the allegations, Aboy
''engaged in activities to violate a law of the United States, relating to
espionage,'' ''failed to register with the attorney general'' as someone trained
in espionage and concealed his intent to spy on the United States when he
applied for a green card in 1996.
CLOSED HEARING
At the hearing, which was closed to the media, Aboy's attorney -- Grisel
Ybarra -- said she denied the allegations and presented what she described as
evidence that Aboy did not conceal his Cuban military background from U.S.
officials.
''In 1994, when he escaped from Cuba and was interviewed by U.S. officials
in Guantanamo six times, he told them who he was,'' Ybarra said after the
hearing. She also gave The Herald a copy of Aboy's visa application filled out
at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay where he listed his occupation as "lieutenant
marine war/Cuba.''
But Dan Vara, chief legal officer for the INS Miami district, said the
relevant issue is that Aboy did not register with the Attorney General as
required by law for foreign nationals trained in espionage. Vara also said that
Aboy did not tell any U.S. official that he was trained in espionage and that
the U.S. government has evidence he was trained in such tactics.
Vara said the INS will disclose specific evidence about Aboy by the next
hearing now scheduled for July 23.
Ybarra, Aboy's attorney, said INS told the immigration court that Aboy had
been ordered to infiltrate the U.S. Southern Command, which is based in
Miami-Dade and serves as military nerve center for the Caribbean and Latin
America.
''They told the judge he was a courier for the Wasp Network, who used a
cylinder to pass on information and that other spies would testify to that,''
she said.
Aboy, in Thursday's interview, said the only cylinder he ever used was his
diving oxygen tank.
WASP NETWORK
The allegation against Aboy, that he failed to register, is similar to
charges made against some of the 12 Avispa or Wasp Network members who pleaded
guilty or were convicted since the ring was dismantled in 1998.
But in Aboy's case, federal authorities have not charged him criminally and
instead of seeking to put him in federal prison, they want him deported.
Federal officials have said that the evidence against Aboy is significant,
but not enough for prosecutors to win an espionage conviction.
''We have definitive evidence that Mr. Aboy is an unidentified
co-conspirator [in the Avispa network],'' Vara said following a bond hearing
Tuesday, adding that the convicted spies would testify against Aboy. He would
not elaborate.
But attorneys for some of the convicted spies said spy suspects who struck
deals with the government to avoid trial helped prosecutors with the Aboy case.
In the interview Thursday, Aboy said he never met any of the convicted Cuban
spy suspects and that his training was for war -- not espionage.
''I was in the navy so therefore I had to know about diving,'' Aboy said.
He added that in 1998, the year the Avispa network was busted, federal
agents contacted him and asked whether he knew any of the people who had been
arrested.
'WE KNOW'
'I told them, 'No, I don't know those guys,' '' Aboy said Thursday. He added
that one of the agents told him "we know you are Gabriel.''
Aboy said he told the agent that he was mistaken, that Gabriel is his
25-year-old son in Cuba.
Aboy, who married in the United States and worked as a diver fixing
underwater equipment at military installations and nuclear plants, left Cuba in
1994 on a small boat.
He entered the U.S. in March 1995 and became a permanent resident in 1996.
Varela creator, OAS honored
WASHINGTON - Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá, whose Varela Project hopes
to bring democratic changes to Cuba, and the Organization of American States
will receive the 2002 Democracy Award from the National Democratic Institute for
International Affairs.
The award is presented "to those who exemplify a strong commitment to
democracy, often at personal risk.''
Payá and OAS Secretary General César Gaviria will be honored
at a ceremony in Washington later this year, the NDI said.
Globetrotter team plans Cuba game
By Nancy San Martin. nsanmartin@herald.com
America's most famous basketball team plans to dribble across a Cuban court
this summer during an exhibition game with Cuban players.
The Harlem Globetrotters, internationally known for their Stars and Stripes
uniform and zany athletic skills, were due to arrive in Havana this week, but
the trip was pushed back and is now scheduled to take place at the end of August
or in early September.
This would be only the second time the 76-year-old team has played in Cuba.
The first was in 1956, three years before President Fidel Castro seized control.
''When we first played there I fell in love with the country,'' head coach
Tex Harrison, who was a player for the Globetrotters during the first visit,
said through a spokesman Thursday. "I am excited to be given the
opportunity to return.''
Organizers already have received permission from the U.S. and Cuban
governments and are in the process of attaining sponsors for the event, which is
expected to cost more than $500,000. Among the corporations being approached:
Archer Daniels Midland, a grain conglomerate; Abbot Laboratories, a healthcare
company; and Bacardi -- the rum empire whose original factory in Santiago de
Cuba was among many properties confiscated by the Castro government.
''That is as much of a wish as me being starting center for the
Globetrotters,'' Jorge Rodríguez-Márquez, a spokesman for
Barcardi, said when asked if the company would consider sponsorship.
The exhibition game, which also will include a match between the
Globetrotters and the New York Nationals, has been a year in the planning.
Harlem Globetrotters plan visit to Cuba
By Nancy San Martin. nsanmartin@herald.com. Posted on Thu,
Jun. 20, 2002
America's most famous basketball team plans to dribble across a Cuban court
this summer during a historic exhibition game with Cuban players.
The Harlem Globetrotters, internationally known for their Stars and Stripes
uniform and athletic skills, were due to arrive in Havana this week but the trip
was pushed back and is now scheduled to take place at the end of August or in
early September.
This will be only the second time the 76-year-old Globetrotters team will
play in Cuba. The first was in the mid-1950s before President Fidel Castro rose
to power in 1959.
Organizers already have received permission to travel from the U.S. and
Cuban governments and are now in the process of attaining sponsors for the
event, which is expected to cost more than half a million dollars. | 
