The indictment offered an intriguing glimpse into DI activities and
interests in Miami in connection with ``Operation Scorpion -- the ambush
of four Brothers pilots shot down and killed by Cuban MiGs on Feb. 24,
1996.
It also accused a top agent of the Wasp Network of conspiracy to
commit murder. The DI captain, who has used fake U.S. passports in the
name of Manuel Viramontes, was identified in the indictment as Gerardo
Hernandez.
But the indictment also left some key questions unanswered:
The indictment indicates the plot to ambush the Brothers pilots
started around December 1995, when defendant Juan Pablo Roque was ordered
by Havana to ``urgently inform'' on the activities of Brothers leader
Jose Basulto.
Hernandez was told on Feb. 17 that ``MX had directed that none of his
spies should fly with Brothers Feb. 24-27, the indictment said, apparently
to safeguard them from the planned shootdowns.
By Feb. 22, 1996, the trap appeared to be in place, with DI officials
in Havana reporting that a special agent had traveled to an undisclosed
site to support Roque's escape after the trap was sprung.
Roque, a ``defector who had become friends with Basulto,
disappeared on Feb. 23. While initial media reports had him returning to
Cuba via the Bahamas, the indictment says he escaped through Mexico, long
a base for Cuban intelligence operations.
One of the accused spies had a Mexican driver's license, and two of
the accused who traveled back to Cuba to receive new orders appear to have
done so through Mexico, according to the indictment.
The indictment also charged that the Cuban spies used beepers to
message each other, and were under orders to use a special code in ``an
emergency indicating a U.S. military threat being planned against Cuba.
The spy network appeared to have been primarily assigned to report
on Cuban exiles in Miami while provoking and encouraging differences
within the exile community, the indictment said.
But the agents were also tasked with ``influencing U.S. public and
private institutions, including law enforcement and political entities,
the document added.
Their work included sending letters to The Miami Herald portraying
the writers as Cuban-American moderates and attacking exile community
leaders like Jorge Mas Canosa, the late founder of the Cuban American
National Foundation, law enforcement officials said.
The indictment also indicated that the alleged Cuban agents had
apparently spent more time spying on U.S. military installations than
previously thought.
Defendant Antonio Guerrero filed two reports on the Boca Chica Naval
Air Station in Key West, describing planes and their takeoff and landing
times, as well as the home addresses of some officers, the indictment
said.
Joseph and Amarylis Santos filed at least one ``detailed'' report on
the Miami-based U.S. Southern Command and were under orders to try to
obtain jobs at the complex, which controls U.S. military activities in
Latin America.
And defendant Rene Gonzalez, a pilot with the exile Democracy Movement,
reported he had flown close to the Homestead air base to report on
activities there.
One unidentified member of the Wasp Network met on April 14, 1998, with
a Cuban diplomat -- apparently attached to the Cuban mission to the
United Nations -- in the men's room of a Wendy's in Nassau County, New
York, the indictment added
Although the indictment did not identify the mysterious ``MX, the
post of chief of the Directorate of Intelligence is usually held by a
deputy minister in the Ministry of Interior, which handles Cuba's internal
security.
The staff at the DI, formerly known as the DGI, was heavily purged
after the 1989 trial and execution of Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa and several
Interior Ministry intelligence operatives on charges of drug smuggling.
Gen. Jesus Bermudez Cutiño, then head of army intelligence, was
named to head DI but was transferred back to military intelligence in
1995, several Cuban armed forces defectors in Miami said.
The identity of Bermudez's replacement was not immediately
available.
Top spy planned Brothers ambush