Top Advisor Gets 30 Years in Cuba

HAVANA TIMES — The leading advisor to former Cuban parliament chair Ricardo Alarcon has just received a 30-year prison sentence and his wife 15, both convicted of leaking sensitive information.

Miguel Alvarez and Mercedes Arce, in their 50s, are both former Cuban intelligence analysts notes the Miami Herald, which notes that the couple was detained in Havana for interrogation in March, 2012.

“Alvarez is the most senior Cuban official known to have been convicted of spying against the communist government in decades. At least three other Cubans are imprisoned on the island for spying, including two former Interior Ministry officials,” noted the Hearld.

Alarcon, 77, was removed from his post heading the Popular People’s National Assembly in July 2013. He is still involved in the campaign to free the four Cubans remaining in US prisons with sentences for spying.

The Cuban press almost never informs on cases of corruption or betrayal involving high level officials and the Alvarez-Arce case is one more on the silence list.