The former ambassador of United States in Argentina, Manuel Rochawas arrested in the city of Miami by the FBIaccused of spying as an agent for Cuba.
Rocha, 73, was also the US ambassador to Bolivia. He was arrested for FBI last Friday for a criminal complaint and more details about the case are expected to be made public at a court appearance this Tuesday.
The Department of Justice The United States accuses Rocha of working to promote the interests of the Cuban regimeindicated a judicial source cited by the AP agency, although at the moment there were not many details surrounding the case.
Former United States ambassador Manuel Rocha arrested for espionage
Rocha served as the United States representative in Argentina between 1997 and 2000.in the midst of the crisis that led to the end of the radical government of Raúl Alfonsín and the beginning of the first administration of Carlos Menem.
He later served in Bolivia, starting in 2000.where he played hard against the election of Evo Morales and ended up fired in 2003, accused of inciting the civil war.
Who is Manuel Rocha
Born in Colombia, Manuel Rocha grew up in a working-class home in New York and earned a series of liberal arts degrees at Yale, Harvard, and Georgetown before joining the Foreign Service in 1981.
The 25-year-old Rocha’s diplomatic career spanned under Democratic and Republican administrations, much of it in Latin America during the Cold War, a period of sometimes heavy-handed U.S. policies and military. His diplomatic appointments included a stint in the U.S. Interests Section in Cuba, at a time when the United States lacked full diplomatic relations with the communist government of Cuba. Fidel Castro.
Rocha also served in Italy, Honduras, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, and worked as a Latin America expert for the National Security Council.
Rocha’s wife, Karla Wittkop Rocha, declined to comment when contacted by the AP. “I don’t need to talk to you,” she said before hanging up. Following his retirement from the State Department, the former diplomat He began a second career in the business world, as president of a gold mine in the Dominican Republic. owned in part by the Canadian Barrick Gold.
Most recently, he has held senior positions at XCoal, a Pennsylvania-based coal exporter; Clover Leaf Capital, a company created to facilitate mergers in the cannabis sector; the law firm Foley & Lardner and the Spanish public relations firm Llorente & Cuenca.
“Our firm remains committed to transparency and will closely monitor the situation, cooperating fully with authorities if we have any information,” Darío Álvarez, general director of Llorente & Cuenca’s U.S. operations, said in an email. .
Source: Ambito
