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A former top American diplomat has been indicted in the US for allegedly working secretly for Cuba for decades. The Public Prosecution Service accuses the now 73-year-old man of abusing his position of trust in the American government ‘to promote the interests of a foreign power’. He is said to have provided the Cuban secret service with partly secret information since 1981. He is said to have hidden foreign trips from the US government, for example to meet employees of the Cuban secret service.

According to the Justice Department, the man, originally from Colombia and later naturalized in the United States, worked in the US government’s National Security Council from 1994 to 1995 and as US ambassador to Bolivia from 2000 to 2002. He worked for more than twenty years in various positions at the US Department of State. From 2006 to 2012, he served as advisor to the commander of the U.S. Army Southern Command, whose area of ​​responsibility includes Cuba.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said Monday that the indictment “exposes one of the most far-reaching and longest-running infiltrations of the U.S. government by a foreign agent.” FBI Director Christopher Wray said the man violated his oath to protect and defend the Constitution and betrayed the trust of the American people.

According to the Justice Department, the man admitted to working for Cuba “for decades” during a series of meetings in 2022 and 2023 with an undercover FBI agent. To get the man to confess, the FBI investigator posed as an undercover employee of the Cuban secret service. During the meeting, the man behaved like a “Cuban agent” and consistently referred to the US as an “enemy.”

Now the 73-year-old must appear in court in the US state of Florida. American media had previously reported that the man had been arrested at his home in Miami. (sda/dpa)