Why Is A Cuban Spy Who Was Nabbed In The U.S. And Freed In A Prisoner Swap Visiting Moscow?

BY NORA GÁMEZ TORRES, Miami Herald

Gerardo Hernandez Nordelo, the convicted Cuban spy who now heads the nationwide neighbor snitch program known as the Committee For the Defense of the Revolution

A Cuban spy who was captureand imprisoned in the U.S., and later released in a prisoner swap with Cuba, has been making official visits overseas, including to Russia, for the island’s government, raising questions about his role, especially after his trip followed visits by the head of Cuba’s intelligence and security services. During a two-week trip that started mid-May, Cuba’s Minister of the Interior, Gen. Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas, met with the Vietnamese minister of Public Security, China’s minister of Public Security and Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev, whom he had previously met in Havana in March. Closely tracking Álvarez Casas with his own tour to Vietnam, Laos and Russia was Gerardo Hernández, the former spy who currently heads a Cuban organization with no foreign-policy mandate. Media reports and government statements placed Hernández and Gen. Álvarez Casas in Vietnam at the same time, and possibly also in Russia, though their trips have not been officially linked.

Hernández was the leader of a Cuban espionage ring, known as the Wasp Network, dismantled by the FBI in South Florida in 1998. He was convicted of espionage and conspiracy to commit murder for his involvement in Cuba’s shoot-down of two planes owned by the Cuban exile organization Brothers to the Rescue in 1996, in which four people were killed. Hernández was sentenced to life in prison, but was released by President Barack Obama during a prisoner swap in December 2014 after serving 16 years. Welcomed in Cuba as a hero, Hernández was appointed in May 2016 as vice-rector of Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs higher education institute, from which he had graduated in 1988. In September 2020, he was named general coordinator of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, or CDR, the organization created by Fidel Castro to take state surveillance to every street block on the island. But beyond the cooperation of CDR members with the police, the organization lacks resources and has little power, giving Hernández’s primarily a symbolic role even if, as head of the CDR, he has secured a seat at the National Assembly’s executive arm, the Council of State.

Officially, Hernández was invited by Russia’s Public Chamber, an organization created by Putin to bring civil society under state control, critics say. During his tour, the former spy has met with Laos Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Gen. Chansamone Chanyalath and a powerful Russian senator, Dmitry Kuzmin, and performed ceremonial activities usually carried out by high-ranking government officials, like laying wreaths at monuments. Past CDR presidents rarely had contact with foreign officials, much less embark on an international tour. And the fact that Hernandez’s trip included a Moscow stop when Cuban and Russian intelligence services are getting closer has raised questions about the purpose of the visit.

Feature continues Here: Failed Spy Visits Moscow