A former US State Department official and his wife pleaded guilty last night to charges that they spied for almost three decades for the Communist-led Cuban government.
Walter Kendall Myers had "top secret" clearance and, with the help of his wife Gwendolyn, gave classified information to the Cuban government, US prosecutors said. They also spent an evening with then-Cuban leader Fidel Castro in 1995.
In guilty plea agreements, Mr Kendall Myers (72) who was known as Agent 202, agreed to a sentence of life in prison, while his wife (71) known as Agent 123, agreed to serve as many as 7-1/2 years in prison, the Justice Department said.
"For the past thirty years, this couple betrayed America's trust by covertly providing classified national defence information to the Cuban government," David Kris, assistant attorney general for national security, said in a statement.
The couple have agreed to forfeit $1.7 million in assets, including an apartment in Washington, a 37-foot sailing yacht, a vehicle and various bank and investment accounts, the department said.
Mr Kendall Myers started at the State Department in August 1977 as a contract instructor at its Foreign Service Institute and left in March 1979. During that period he spent two weeks in Cuba at the invitation of a Cuban government official who actually was an intelligence officer, court documents said.
Mr While the couple was living in South Dakota, that intelligence officer visited them and recruited them to be spies for Cuba, the documents said.
Reuters