From Tribune News Services. Chicago Tribune. February 25, 2000
MIAMI A judge denied bail Thursday to a long-serving U.S. immigration officer charged with spying for Cuba.
Magistrate Judge Barry Garber called the crimes with which Mariano Faget, 54, has been charged "perhaps the most serious set forth in the statutes of this country."
Faget was arrested Feb. 17 in Miami after an FBI sting operation. The agency had suspected Faget of having contacts with Cuban agents and passing classified information to them.
The United States then ordered an official from the Cuban Interests Section, Havana's diplomatic mission in Washington, to leave the country.
But Fidel Castro's government has refused to recall the diplomat, Jose Imperatori, saying the accusations that he had cooperated with any alleged espionage were lies.
Imperatori has done nothing wrong, Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly, said Thursday, adding: "He will remain (in the U.S.). We have not pulled him back, and we are not going to pull him back."
Alarcon challenged State Department officials to "present their alleged proof" and to "not fear debate" on the matter.
Faget, a native of Havana who has been a U.S. citizen since 1963, is on paid leave from his post as a supervisor in the Miami office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
"I want to have my day in court to defend myself," he said Thursday.
Faget's wife, sons and other relatives wept as Garber ruled that Faget must remain in custody pending a March 6 arraignment.
Prosecutors say that Faget on Feb. 11 was given bogus information that a U.S.-based Cuban diplomat was set to defect.
Within minutes, Faget allegedly went to his office, called a business associate with ties to Cuba on his cellular phone and told him: "a person we both know (is) . . . one of the ones working with the Americans." |