Ana Montes, who was convicted of spying for Cuba, released from prison

Cuban spy is released EARLY: Former US intelligence analyst Ana Montes, 65, who gave up identities of at least four spies in Havana is released from prison after more than 20 years

• Ana Belen Montes, 65, was released Friday from a federal prison in Fort Worth
• Montes pleaded guilty in 2002 to conspiring to commit espionage as part of a plea deal
• She was was sentenced to 25 years in prison but she was granted early release largely on account of good behavior 

A former U.S. defense intelligence analyst who was convicted of spying for Cuba more than 20 years ago has been released early from a federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas.

Ana Belen Montes, 65, was released Friday, Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman Scott Taylor said on Saturday.

She was granted early release, largely on account of good behavior. 

Montes was the top military and political analyst working on Cuban affairs at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) when she was arrested in September 2001 and charged with spying for Cuba as a result of an FBI investigation.

An undated handout image from a U.S. Department of Defense report dating back to 2005 shows Ana Belen Montes receiving a national intelligence certificate of distinction from George Tenet, who served as Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency

Montes pleaded guilty in 2002 to conspiring to commit espionage as part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

She acknowledged revealing the identities of four undercover agents for the U.S. to Cuban authorities and had faced a possible death sentence if convicted. 

Federal prosecutors at the time said the four agents whose identities she revealed were not harmed.

U.S. prosecutors also accused Montes of disclosing to Cuba secrets so sensitive they could not be described publicly. Court records said she provided documents that revealed details about U.S. surveillance of Cuban weapons.

Officials at the time said Montes was believed to have been recruited by Cuban intelligence when she worked in the Freedom of Information office at the Justice Department between 1979 and 1985, and was asked to seek work at an agency that would provide more useful information to Cuba.

She began working for the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1985, and was considered a top analyst on the Cuban military.

Montes (pictured) was the top military and political analyst working on Cuban affairs at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) when she was arrested in September 2001 and charged with spying for Cuba as the result of an FBI investigation

‘Though I knew this day would come, it stings me Montes is now free,’ said Pete Lapp, a retired FBI special agent who led the investigation with another agent, Steve McCoy, and arrested Montes. ‘Having been in the room and helped the FBI build a very solid, prosecutable case that led to a hefty 25-year prison sentence, what we learned after from her in the debriefing shocked me.’

The FBI arrested Montes 10 days after the September 11 terrorist attacks. The DIA was preparing to assign her to a team that would by privy to information concerning locations the U.S. might bomb in Afghanistan.

‘Her intent to spy for the Cubans, if not arrested, against our warfighters in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks would have risked lives,’ Lapp, who co-authored a book about the case, ‘Queen of Cuba,’ scheduled to be published in October, told the Washington Post.

Montes told the judge who sentenced her in 2002: ‘I believe our government’s policy toward Cuba is cruel and unfair, profoundly unneighborly, and I felt morally obligated to help the island defend itself from our efforts to impose our values and our political system upon it.’

Prior to her release, members of Montes’s family said in a statement she had ‘committed treason against this country and the people of our nation’.

They added: ‘We continue to disavow what she did and any statements she has made or may make.’

How Ana Montes was caught 

One night in 1996, Montes was called to consult at the Pentagon during an ongoing international incident. However, she broke protocol by failing to stay on duty until dismissed, raising suspicion.

Four years later, DIA counterintelligence officer Scott Carmichael heard the FBI was searching for an unidentified spy inside the DIA who was working for Cuba.

The suspect had visited the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, at a specific time. When he looked up a list of DIA employees who traveled to Gitmo during those dates, the name Ana Montes came up.

‘The moment I saw her name, I knew,’ Carmichael said.

After that, Carmichael and FBI agent Lapp set out to prove that the Montes was really a spy.

Thanks to ‘very sensitive’ intelligence, it was known that the unidentified DIA mole had purchased a specific make, brand and model of computer at a specific time in 1996 from an unknown store in Alexandria, Virginia.

Lapp was able to locate the store’s original record that linked that computer to Montes.

Source: CNN

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