Justice Department brings additional charges against former US ambassador to Bolivia accused of spying
By Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN
(CNN) — The Justice Department unsealed additional charges Tuesday against Manuel Rocha, the former US ambassador to Bolivia accused of acting as a secret foreign agent of Cuba.
A new indictment unsealed Tuesday charges Rocha with 15 counts, including new charges for wire fraud and making false statements to investigators. Prosecutors allege that the 73-year-old former American diplomat acted as a “covert agent of Cuba’s intelligence services” for decades.
Rocha has pleaded not guilty.
Rocha served in various roles with the State Department for decades, according to prosecutors. In 1982, Rocha began as a political officer at the US Embassy in the Dominican Republic. He then worked in Honduras, Mexico, Argentina, and as the political officer at the US Embassy in the Dominican Republic – a role that prosecutors say gave him “special responsibility” for Cuba.
He also served as the US ambassador to Bolivia from 2000 to 2002, and as an adviser to the commander of the US military’s joint command of in the region, which included Cuba, from 2006 to 2012.
The newly unsealed indictment adds several additional allegations against Rocha, including that he allegedly praised another US government employee who worked as an agent of Cuba. In secretly recorded conversations, Rocha allegedly discussed someone working with the Cuban government named “Ana” and said that “sadly she would have done much more had she not been betrayed.”
While court documents do not identify the individual, an American citizen named Ana Montes was convicted of spying for the Cuban government while working at the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency. She spent more than 20 years behind bars.
Prosecutors also said that the day Rocha was arrested, he was shown a picture of an undercover FBI employee whom he had allegedly met with several times. Investigators asked Rocha whether he knew the FBI employee, who had been posing as a member of Cuban intelligence during their meetings.
Rocha denied having ever met the FBI employee, according to court documents. He was then presented an image of himself and the FBI employee sitting together, prosecutors say, and Rocha then told investigators that he had met the employee once and didn’t know who the employee was.
The meetings between Rocha and the FBI employee were recorded, according to court documents, including interactions where Rocha allegedly referred to the US as “the enemy” and praised Cuban revolutionary and politician Fidel Castro.
The-CNN-Wire
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