By IRVIN MOLOTSKY

          WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 -- The Cuban diplomat ordered
          expelled last week by the United States on spying charges gave
          up his diplomatic immunity today and challenged American officials to
          arrest him so that he could prove his innocence.

          The diplomat, José Imperatori, said through his lawyer that he would not
          leave the United States by this afternoon, the deadline he had been given.
          His lawyer, Kurt L. Schmoke, the former mayor of Baltimore, said he
          would begin a hunger strike "in order to clear his name."

          Mr. Imperatori was identified by the Cuban interests section, which
          represents the Cuban government in the United States, as the diplomat
          who was alleged to have been in contact with the American immigration
          official who was charged last week with spying.

          Cuba has insisted that Mr. Imperatori did nothing wrong and met with the
          official on routine business.

          Mr. Schmoke said at Mr. Imperatori's apartment that he had been told
          by American authorities that Mr. Imperatori would be taken into custody
          and flown out of the country tonight. He added that Mr. Imperatori
          would not resist and would cooperate with any investigation, and that
          even if deported, the Cuban would be willing to return to the United
          States to testify in the spying case.

          The State Department did not respond immediately to requests for
          comment.

          The extraordinary confrontation, breaking the normal standards of
          diplomatic conduct and forgoing the routine tit-for-tat expulsions that are
          the norm when diplomats are entangled in charges of espionage, comes
          at a time when the United States and Cuba are also embroiled in a
          dispute over whether to return a Cuban boy to his father in Cuba or
          allow him to stay with relatives in Miami.

          The head of the Cuban interests section, Fernando Remírez de Estenoz,
          said at a news conference at the diplomatic mission here today that the
          arrest of the American immigration official and the move to expel Mr.
          Imperatori were connected to the custody battle over the boy, Elián
          González.

          The arrest and expulsion order, Mr. Remírez said, took place just days
          before a court case concerning the boy, although the United States
          contends that the charges involving Mr. Imperatori and the American
          official "went on for a year."

          The immigration agent, Mariano M. Faget, is a senior official in the Miami
          office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Mr. Remírez said
          that the accusations made against both Mr. Imperatori and Mr. Faget
          were false.

          Mr. Imperatori said in a letter to the head of the mission:

          "Dear Comrade Remírez,

          "I am addressing you to submit my resignation, as of this moment, to my
          position and functions in our beloved interests section and to the
          prerogatives therein. I have decided to stay in America, assuming all the
          necessary risks, and consequences, to struggle against the slanders that
          hurt my honor, and that of the interests section in Washington and my
          own homeland."

          In a statement read by Felix Wilson Hernández, the deputy chief of the
          diplomatic mission, Mr. Imperatori said: "I have become the victim of a
          major slander. I have been wrongly accused of doing intelligence work in
          the United States."

          He added that one factor compelling him to waive his diplomatic
          immunity and stay in the United States was his wish to disprove the
          accusations against Mr. Faget.

          The United States government had issued an expulsion order for Mr.
          Imperatori last Saturday, giving him until 1:30 p.m. today to leave the
          country or face arrest.

          Although he could have avoided arrest by staying inside the interest
          section, an embassy in all but name that operates under the auspices of
          the Swiss Embassy in Washington, he chose instead to spend today at his
          apartment in suburban Bethesda, Md., where it would be easy to arrest
          him. Mr. Schmoke pointedly gave out the street address and apartment
          number at a televised news conference today.

          Mr. Imperatori was first accused of espionage after the Federal Bureau
          of Investigation arrested Mr. Faget and charged him with espionage on
          Feb. 24. Mr. Faget was accused of giving a Cuban-born New York
          businessman false information that American officials had given him about
          a Cuban intelligence agent's plan to defect to the United States.