Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed Against Former U.S. Ambassador Over Cuban Dissident’s Death: Full Details Revealed

2024-02-29 18:55:00
In the image, the deceased Cuban opponent Oswaldo Payá (EFE/Alejandro Ernesto/File)

The widow of a prominent Cuban dissident killed in a mysterious car accident filed a wrongful death lawsuit against a former U.S. ambassador suspected of working for Cuba, accusing the former diplomat of sharing intelligence that emboldened Cuba’s communist leaders to assassinate to a main opponent.

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Oswaldo Payá died in 2012 when his car crashed into a tree in eastern Cuba in what the government considered an accident caused by driver error. However, one survivor said the vehicle had been hit from behind by a red Lada with government license plates, a claim consistent with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights’ findings last year that state security agents likely participated in the attack. death of the activist.

This is how the car looked after the alleged accident

In the state lawsuit filed Thursday in Miami, Ofelia Payá accused Manuel Rocha, former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, of being “complicit” in the “murder” of her husband. Rocha was arrested in December on charges of working as a secret agent for Cuba since the 1970s.

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Rocha “directly assisted Cuban officials by providing them with critical information that he obtained through his top-secret security clearance and influential roles,” the lawsuit alleges. “Cuba would not have been able to execute Payá with impunity without the accused conspiring and providing intelligence and aid to the Cuban dictatorship.”

Manuel Rocha in his office at Steel Hector & Davis, in Miami, in January 2003 (Photo, Raúl Rubiera/Miami Herald via AP)

The lawsuit, filed on what would have been Payá’s 72nd birthday, underscores the deep anger and sense of betrayal felt by Miami’s powerful Cuban exile community, which saw Rocha as a conservative standard-bearer and one of their own. Payá is being represented pro bono by attorney Carlos Trujillo, the son of Cuban immigrants who served as Ambassador to the Organization of the American State during the Trump administration.

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While the lawsuit does not cite any evidence linking Rocha to the death, it claims that Rocha, as a diplomat and businessman after retiring from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2002, sought ways to secretly strengthen Castro’s revolution.

Those efforts reportedly included securing a position from 2006 to 2012 as special advisor to the head of the US Southern Command in Miami, which has responsibility for Cuba.

“Beneath this veneer of loyalty and service to the United States, the defendant maintained a clandestine loyalty to the Cuban regime,” the lawsuit alleges.

A review by the AP agency of secret diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks found that during 20 months, between 2006 and 2008, diplomats from the United States Interests Section in Havana sent the commander of the Southern Command 22 reports on Payá’s activities. , its funding by the US government, and its interactions with US officials.

At the time of his death, at age 60, Payá had earned the reputation of being the most tenacious opponent of the Cuban regime (EFE/EPA/CRISTOBAL HERRERA-ULASHKEVICH)

In a February 2008 cable, then-chief of mission Michael Parmly summarized for Navy Admiral James Stavridis, then commander of Southcom, a meeting with Payá in which he urged the activist to take advantage of an upcoming visit from the Vatican to intensify his pressure on the regime to release more political prisoners.

“Payá remains convinced that (the government) is feeling intense pressure within Cuba from the population to achieve profound change,” according to the cable.

By the time of his death, aged 60, Payá had earned a reputation as the most tenacious opponent of the Cuban regime, having created a grassroots network of like-minded Christians, called the Varela Project, to promote freedom of assembly. and human rights in the closely controlled island ties.

In 2002, the European Union awarded Payá its highest human rights award, named after Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov. He dedicated the award to his fellow Cubans. “You have rights too,” he said in his acceptance speech.

(With information from AP)

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