A Miami Cuban exile was extradited to Mexico to face trial for the 1976 attempted kidnapping of the Cuban consul in Merida and the murder of his bodyguard, a high-ranking State Department official confirmed Friday.

Gaspar Jimenez, 45, was flown to Mexico Thursday after the Supreme Court denied an appeal to block the extradition, said Myles Frechette, director of the department's Cuban Affairs Desk.

A second Cuban exile, Gustavo Castillo, also allegedly involved in the case, remains in federal custody in New York pending a Supreme Court decision on an appeal.

Jimenez's wife, Maria del Carmen, said in Miami that her husband was taken from the Metropolitan Corrections Center in New York City Thursday night, placed aboard a plane and flown to Mexico.

She said a friend in Mexico City had called Friday morning saying Jimenez was being held at the Center for Social Readjustment in Chetumal, in the Yucatan peninsula.

That is the same jail where Orestes Ruiz, the third Miami exile involved in the attempted kidnaping/murder case, is serving a 2-year sentence.

Jimenez, Castillo and Ruiz are accused of trying to kidnap the Cuban consul in Merida, Mexico, in 1976. The attempt failed when the consul, Daniel Ferrer Fernandez, ran away, but his bodyguard, Artanan Diaz Diaz, was killed.

Cuban exiles, who have protested U.S. intentions to comply with the extradition request, fear that once in Mexico Jimenez could be sent to Cuba.