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Fernando González Llort, a former Cuban spy sentenced in the United States and current president of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), posted a message on Facebook in which he accused Secretary of State Marco Rubio of "deliberately lying" and "defaming" the ICAP, in direct response to the escalating pressure from Washington against the organization.
González's challenge comes one day after Rubio announced the arrest on U.S. soil of Carlos Antonio Lloga Domínguez, a former official of the mentioned agency, along with his wife and son, who are being held under federal custody pending deportation.
In his statement, González described the remarks made by the Secretary of State as "lies that do not hold up" and asserted that their only purpose is to "intimidate and scare the significant supportive force that stands by and accompanies our country."
The former spy also criticized U.S. foreign policy using the usual language of the Cuban regime: "The Secretary of State is greatly bothered that Cuba's friends and honest, well-meaning people raise their voices against the genocidal and criminal policies of Yankee imperialism."
He concluded his message with a statement of institutional challenge: "The ICAP will remain steadfast in fulfilling the mission for which it was established over 65 years ago, which is to promote friendships with countries and peoples around the world. Solidarity cannot be blocked."
The statement from the State Department that accompanied the announcement of Lloga Domínguez's arrest explicitly identified González Llort as a "convicted Cuban spy" who served 15 years in prison in the United States, and described the ICAP as a "vehicle for radical left extremism and foreign subversive influence in the United States and throughout the hemisphere."
Rubio also issued a direct warning to those who maintain ties with the organization: "If you engage in transactions with ICAP, you will be sanctioned, prosecuted, or deported from our country."
González Llort was one of the so-called "Five Heroes" of Cuba, members of the Wasp Network dismantled by the FBI in 1998 in Florida.
He operated under the alias "Rubén Campa" and was sentenced to 19 years in prison, a sentence he served in full before being released in 2014. In 2017, he was appointed president of ICAP and awarded the title of Hero of the Republic of Cuba.
The offensive against the ICAP intensified on June 4th, when the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added ICAP and its affiliated company Amistur S.A. to the sanctions list, blocking all their assets and interests in the U.S.
On that same day, the ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel, his wife Lis Cuesta, the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, and the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution were also sanctioned.
These measures are part of Executive Order 14404, signed by President Donald Trump on May 1, as part of a campaign that has accumulated over 240 sanctions against the Cuban regime since January of this year.
The ICAP had already responded to the sanctions on June 10, describing them as a "political act of hostility based on slander" and demanding their immediate removal from the OFAC list.
The State Department describes ICAP as the core of a network of influence that spans over 2,000 organizations in more than 150 countries, closely tied to Cuban intelligence services, making the detention of Lloga Domínguez the first direct action against an individual linked to the organization on U.S. soil under the current legal framework.
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