Ana Montes, an American citizen convicted of spying for Cuba, has been released from US federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas, according to Federal Bureau of Prison online records.
Cuba recruited Montes for spying in the 1980s and she was employed by the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency as an analyst from 1985-2001. She was eventually promoted to be the DIA’s top Cuba analyst.
The FBI and DIA began investigating her in the fall of 2000 but, in response to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, she had access to plans for US attacks against Afghanistan and the Taliban.
On September 21, 2001, Montes was arrested in Washington, DC, and charged with conspiracy to deliver defense information to Cuba.
In early 2002, she was sentenced to 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to espionage. The judge who sentenced Montes ordered her to be supervised on release from prison for five years.
Regarding Montes’ release, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio slammed Montes for betraying the US and assisting Cuba’s communist regime.
“Americans should remember Ana Belén Montes for who she really is, despite the fact that she has served her time in prison. If we forget this spy’s story, it will surely repeat itself,” Rubio said in a statement released on Saturday.
Ana Montes, now 65, was known as the Queen of Cuba, an American who for over a decade and a half handed over so many US military secrets to Havana that experts say the US may never know the full extent of the damage.
In 1984, Montes was working a clerical job at the Justice Department in Washington and studying for a master’s degree at Johns Hopkins University.
She often found herself railing against President Ronald Reagan’s support for rebels fighting pro-communist regimes in Central America.
