Posted on 09/21/2001 7:42:08 PM PDT by Prodigal Daughter
Pentagon Analyst Accused of Spying
By PETE YOST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP)--A Pentagon intelligence analyst who attended war games conducted by the U.S. Atlantic Command in 1996 was charged Friday with spying for Cuba.
Ana Belen Montes, an employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency, transmitted a substantial amount of classified information to the Cuban intelligence service, an FBI affidavit alleged.
Montes appeared before a U.S. magistrate in Washington and was charged with conspiracy to deliver U.S. national defense information to Cuba. She entered no plea and was ordered held without bond.
Montes has worked for the DIA, the intelligence arm of the Defense Department, since 1985, authorities said.
In a 17-page affidavit, the FBI alleged that the Cuban intelligence service passed messages to Montes via shortwave radio and that the DIA analyst began spying for Cuba nearly five years ago.
The FBI secretly entered Montes' residence under a court order May 25 and uncovered information about several Defense Department issues, including a 1996 war games exercise conducted by the U.S. Atlantic Command, authorities said.
According to the affidavit, the DIA said that Montes attended the war games exercise in Norfolk, Va., as part of her official duties at DIA. The FBI said it found information on the hard drive of her laptop computer.
One partially recovered message deals with ``a particular special access program related to the national defense of the United States,'' which is so sensitive that it could not be publicly revealed in the court documents, the document said.
According to the FBI's affidavit, some of the messages suggested that Montes disclosed the upcoming arrival of a U.S. military intelligence officer in Cuba.
``As a result,'' the FBI said, ``the Cuban government was able to direct its counterintelligence resources against the U.S. officer.''
The FBI said Montes got a message back from her Cuban handlers stating, ``We were waiting here for him with open arms.''
One message from her found on the hard drive was from her Cuban intelligence service handler said that she had provided ``tremendously useful ... information.''
Another message from her Cuban contact said in regard to the 1996 war games exercise: ``Practically everything that takes place there will be of intelligence value. Let's see if it deals with contingency plans and specific targets in Cuba.''
The DIA confirmed that Montes and a colleague were briefed on the highly sensitive program on May 15, 1997.
The FBI said they had Montes under surveillance since May.
It was unclear whether the Montes case was directly related to a ring in Florida convicted of spying for Cuba. However, the FBI affidavit notes repeatedly that methods of passing classified information that Montes allegedly used were the same as those used by the Miami defendants.
Five Florida defendants were convicted in June, and two pleaded guilty in Miami Friday, bringing to seven the number of defendants in a spy ring that prosecutors have labeled ``The Wasp Network.''
During their surveillance of Montes, the FBI trailed her around suburban Washington as she used a series of pay phones to make calls. The FBI said it believes that ``the pay phone calls were in furtherance of Montes' espionage.''
The FBI said the Cuban intelligence service often communicates with clandestine agents outside Cuba by broadcasting encrypted messages at high frequencies which transmits a series of numbers. The clandestine agents monitoring the message on a shortwave radio keys in the numbers onto a computer, then uses a disk containing a decryption program to convert the numbers into text.
The FBI said that is the method that Montes used to communicate. The affidavit said Montes also communicated with the Cuban intelligence service by making calls to a pager number during her pay telephone calls.
The FBI agent said that ``based on the evidence ... I believe probable cause exists'' that Montes has been conspiring to pass secrets to Cuba since Oct. 5, 1996, the day she purchased her laptop computer.
A DIA spokesman declined to comment beyond saying when Montes had gone to work for the agency.
Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla, said Cuba shares intelligence information with terrorist states. ``It was critically important that the spy be stopped now as the United States embarks upon a worldwide war against terrorism,'' he said.
The DIA, based at Bolling Air Force Base in southeast Washington, D.C., provides analyses of foreign countries' military capabilities and troop strengths for Pentagon planners. It also has offices within the Pentagon. Along with the CIA, National Security Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office, the DIA is one of the main agencies of the U.S. intelligence community.
The FBI affidavit said Montes worked at Bolling Air Force Base.
In June, Mariano Faget, a U.S. immigration official convicted of disclosing classified information to aid Cuba, was sentenced to five years in prison.
Faget, once the second-ranking immigration official in Miami, was convicted after an investigation that also lead to the expulsion of a Cuban spy.
Bump!
Also, how did the Spy fluorish under Clinton?
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