A Cuban held at Krome detention center as a torture suspect since last year was released after immigration authorities were unable to deport him to Cuba.

BY ALFONSO CHARDY

Jorge de Cárdenas Agostini, arrested in June on suspicion of supervising a team of torturers in Cuba, has been released from the Krome detention center, where he had been held for months awaiting deportation to Cuba -- a country that generally refuses to take back Cuban exiles.

Sources familiar with the case said de Cárdenas Agostini had indicated during testimony in a previous deportation case that he had worked for a Cuban intelligence unit and supervised a team that allegedly tortured dissidents opposed to Cuban President Fidel Castro.

ALLEGATIONS DENIED

Linda Osberg-Braun, the immigration attorney who represents de Cárdenas Agostini, has denied the allegations. On Wednesday, she declined to discuss the case in detail on or the reasons for her client's release from the West Miami-Dade center last month. De Cárdenas Agostini could not be reached for comment.

Officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have yet to release evidence linking de Cárdenas Agostini to specific acts of torture.

In July, an immigration judge at Krome ordered de Cárdenas Agostini deported. He did not pursue appeals.

Federal officials familiar with the case said de Cárdenas Agostini was granted supervised release because he could not be held indefinitely. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2001 prohibited indefinite detention of foreign nationals. But officials said they intend to deport de Cárdenas Agostini as soon as feasible.

''We will not cease our efforts to carry out de Cárdenas Agostini's order of removal as we are tasked with restoring integrity to our nation's immigration system,'' said Nina Pruneda, a Miami spokeswoman for ICE.

De Cárdenas Agostini was the second Cuban arrested in the United States as a torture suspect under a 5-year-old federal immigration program to deport foreign-born torture suspects.

The first was Eriberto Mederos, accused of torturing political prisoners held at a psychiatric hospital in Cuba in the 1970s. He died in 2002, soon after a Miami jury convicted him of lying on his naturalization application.

EIGHT MONTHS

Federal sources familiar with the case said de Cárdenas Agostini was released Feb. 2, almost eight months after his arrest June 8 in Miami by ICE agents.

De Cárdenas Agostini's uncle, Jorge de Cárdenas Loredo, a lobbyist and political strategist, pleaded guilty in 1997 to one count of obstructing justice in a political scandal. He was sentenced to one year in federal prison, and sent to Krome after that. He was released in 1999.

During deportation proceedings for his uncle, de Cárdenas Agostini testified about political conditions in Cuba.

Sources familiar with the testimony said that de Cárdenas Agostini gave indications about the Cuban intelligence unit and the alleged torture of dissidents.

Osberg-Braun denied that de Cárdenas Agostini was involved in torture and said that his testimony was aimed at explaining Cuban politics and what would happen to his uncle were he returned to Cuba.

Friends of de Cárdenas Agostini said he fled Cuba because he once had been associated with Cuban Gen. Antonio de la Guardia, who was executed along with Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa after drug-trafficking trials. Some Cuba experts viewed both generals as opponents of Castro.

De Cárdenas Agostini left Cuba in 1995 and arrived in the United States a year later through the Texas border.

In Miami, he worked on remodeling homes and is now working in construction, a relative said Tuesday.

Herald research editor Monika Leal contributed to this report.