Cuba accuses U.S. of inventing spy threat with ex-envoy’s guilty plea

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Cuba’s foreign minister is accusing the U.S. government of manufacturing an espionage threat in order to justify higher intelligence budgets and “new aggressive steps” against other countries — just hours after a retired U.S. diplomat agreed to plead guilty of spying for Havana over a long career in public and private service.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parilla didn’t mention former U.S. Ambassador Manuel Rocha by name, but said in a social media post that Washington fabricated a foreign threat for its own purposes.

Mr. Rocha told a federal judge in Miami on Thursday that he would change his plea to guilty on charges he spied for decades for the communist regime in Cuba.

Mr. Rocha, who faces a sentencing hearing on April 12, was arrested by the FBI at his Miami home on allegations he engaged in clandestine activity on Cuba’s behalf since at least 1981 — the year he joined the U.S. foreign service, The Associated Press reported.

Over the years, he served as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia and had other diplomatic posts around Latin America, including a time with the U.S. Interests Section in Cuba, all while allegedly spying for Havana.

Even after leaving the diplomatic corps, he held a number of sensitive posts, including special adviser to the commander of the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees the region.

In public, Mr. Rocha portrayed himself as a staunch opponent of the Castro regime and a supporter of former President Donald Trump in Florida’s sizable Cuban community.

Mr. Rodriguez Parilla said the prosecution is an example of American hypocrisy.

“The U.S. government, the one that spies and violates citizens’ privacy the most, invents a foreign threat in data espionage,” he wrote in a post Thursday, hours after the plea deal was confirmed.

“What comes next is more fundraising among taxpayers and new aggressive steps against [other] countries,” he predicted.

U.S. authorities have offered little public information about the extent of Mr. Rocha’s espionage activities, AP reported, and FBI and State Department investigators are still conducting a damage assessment that could take years.