BY JUAN O. TAMAYO

 An angry Canadian government ordered a Cuban diplomat, forcibly deported from
 Washington on spying charges, to leave Canada by Monday evening and end his
 ``publicity seeking attempt to remain in Ottawa.

 Jose Imperatori, 46, a former vice consul in Washington linked to the spy case of
 U.S. immigration official Mariano Faget in Miami, was expected to take a Cubana
 de Aviacion flight to Havana, where the government was preparing a hero's
 welcome.

 Early this morning, however, Imperatori remained at the Cuban Embassy in
 Ottawa.

 ``The gentleman only has a transit visa which expires this evening and we expect
 he and the Cuban government to live up to the responsibilities of that visa,
 Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy said Monday.

 Axworthy added that Canada had simply ``facilitated Imperatori's expulsion from
 the United States on Saturday, and that he would not accept Cuba's request for a
 one-week extension of his Canadian visa.

 Imperatori's attempt to stay in Canada added yet another chapter to a saga that
 has seen him defy a U.S. expulsion order, surrender his immunity, dare the FBI
 to arrest him and spark a U.S.-Cuba diplomatic clash.

 The State Department ordered Imperatori to leave the United States by 1:30 p.m.
 Saturday after the FBI identified him as one of two alleged Cuban intelligence
 agents who met with accused spy Faget in Miami last year.

 But Imperatori surrendered his diplomatic immunity and stayed in his suburban
 Washington apartment until FBI agents took him into custody Saturday evening,
 put him aboard an FBI plane and deported him to Montreal.

 Canada was chosen because the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, in
 effect Havana's embassy, opposed flying him to Miami, which has direct flights to
 Havana, out of security concerns, U.S. officials said.

 EXPULSION COORDINATED

 ``This expulsion from the United States via Canada . . . was closely coordinated
 by U.S., Canadian and Cuban officials in Washington in advance, State
 Department spokesman James Rubin said.

 Canadian and U.S. officials said Monday that Canada agreed to issue Imperatori
 a 48-hour transit visa only after Cuba promised that he would take the next
 commercial flight to Havana.

 He had been booked aboard a Cubana flight from Montreal to Havana Sunday, but
 instead turned up at the Cuban Embassy in Ottawa, a two-hour drive from
 Montreal, as Cuban officials announced he would seek a visa extension so he
 could defend himself from the U.S. allegations of spying.

 Canadian diplomats Monday joined the ranks of those stunned by Cuba's actions,
 with one saying that the extension request was ``a very improper attempt by the
 Cubans to abuse our side for publicity-seeking purposes.

 ``Cheeky of them, said the diplomat, ``to try to put us in the middle of this mess.

 The Canadian ambassador in Havana, Keith Christie, also told Cuban authorities
 Monday that Imperatori should ``comply with Canadian laws and leave for Cuba,
 Foreign Ministry spokesman Michael O'Shaugnessy said.

 Calls to the Cuban Embassy in Ottawa went unanswered Monday, but a Cuban
 government statement Sunday charged that Washington ``had turned Canada into
 a victim of its errors, and vowed Imperatori would remain in Canada ``as an
 accusing finger against the evil done to him.

 U.S. ANNOYED

 State Department spokesman Rubin meanwhile made it clear that U.S. officials
 remained annoyed by Imperatori's refusal to leave U.S. territory after he was
 declared persona non grata Feb. 19.

 ``Under international practice, when a diplomat is declared persona non grata, his
 government must remove him, Rubin said. ``PNG does not mean `Please Now
 Go.' . . . It means `Go.' ''

 As for Imperatori's offer to return later to the United States so that he can defend
 himself and Faget from the spying charges, Rubin said that remained to be
 decided.

 The Cuban-born Faget, 54, a senior official at the Immigration and Naturalization
 Service in Miami, was arrested Feb. 17 and charged with passing secret
 information to Cuban-American businessman Pedro Font.

 The FBI did not file spying charges against Imperatori after he surrendered his
 immunity Saturday, Rubin added, ``because preparing a prosecutorial case is not
 something that can be done in seven days.

 As for the future, he added, ``when and if a time comes where law enforcement
 officials believe it appropriate for him to be here . . . I am not going to rule out that
 possibility. But in the meantime, PNG means PNG.

 This report was supplemented by Herald wire services.
 

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald