WASHINGTON -- Cuba's government has rejected a U.S. request that an
                  unnamed Cuban diplomat leave the United States within seven days because
                  of possible ties to a Cuban-born U.S. immigration official suspected of
                  espionage.

                  A senior U.S. administration official said the expulsion was connected to the
                  arrest of Mariano Faget, the Immigration and Naturalization Service official
                  in Miami who was charged Friday with violating the federal Espionage Act
                  and making false statements.

                  James Foley, a State Department spokesman, said the U.S. asked for the
                  diplomat's expulsion after the FBI presented evidence that showed "actions
                  by the Cuban diplomat were incompatible with his diplomatic status."

                  In Cuba, a government statement condemned the U.S. espionage charges
                  and the explusion request as a "desperate and spectacular maneuver."

                  The statement said, "The Cuban government will not withdraw any officer."
                  It added that Cuba would urge that "this compatriot, so vilely accused,
                  remain in United States territory to give testimony and demonstrate the total
                  falseness of this accusation, whatever the consequences may be."

                  The statement went on to say, "Never in 22 years has the Cuban interests
                  section in Washington carried out intelligence activities in the United States."

                  Statement read to rally in Cuba

                  The statement was read to a rally in Baragua, in the eastern province of
                  Santiago de Cuba. The rally was attended by more than 20,000
                  people, including President Fidel Castro and senior government officials.

                  An earlier statement from the Cuban interests section in Washington offered no
                  comment on the ordered expulsion but said the allegation of Cuban espionage is
                  a "colossal slander." It said the purpose of the Cuban mission is to promote better
                  relations between the United States and Cuba.

                  The statement from the interests section said it is no coincidence that the
                  espionage accusations are being leveled at a time when the custody battle
                  over Elian Gonzalez is reaching a critical stage. Court proceedings are
                  scheduled in the coming week in the case involving efforts by the 6-year-old
                  Cuban boy's Miami relatives to forestall an INS order that he be returned to
                  his father in Cuba.

                  Elian was one of three survivors of a shipwrecked immigration attempt that
                  took the lives of his mother and 10 other people in November.

                  State Department withholds name

                  Foley would not give the diplomat's name or position. He said only that the
                  person enjoys "diplomatic immunity" and that the U.S. government expected
                  the man to leave the country within seven days.

                  Foley said Charles Shapiro, the U.S. coordinator for Cuban affairs, called
                  Felix Wilson, the acting head of the Cuban interests section in Washington,
                  to the State Department to request that a member of the interests section
                  leave.

                  Authorities said Friday that Faget had contacts with Cuban intelligence
                  officials, including a diplomat from the Cuban interests section. Agents
                  secretly watched as Faget met with that diplomat for two hours at a Miami
                  airport bar February 19, 1999, and they videotaped his meeting with a
                  Cuban agent at a Miami hotel in October, the FBI said in an affidavit.

                  Faget, a supervisor in the Miami INS office, was arrested Thursday, after he
                  became the target of an FBI sting operation. Authorities said they fed Faget
                  a false story on February 11 that an important Cuban intelligence officer was
                  planning to defect to the United States, and they asked him to prepare
                  asylum papers.

                  Minutes later, according to authorities, Faget called a Cuban-born New
                  York businessman with alleged ties to Cuban intelligence and told him the
                  name of the supposed defector.

                  Authorities said they had been investigating Faget for a year and that he may
                  have been passing on classified information about Cuban defectors for some
                  time. They also said they were uncertain about the effects of his alleged
                  espionage, whether any Cubans were prevented from defecting, for
                  example.

                  Faget appeared in court on Friday and was ordered held until a bail hearing
                  on February 24.

                  U.S. diplomat expelled from Cuba in '96

                  This is believed to be the first Cuban diplomat asked to leave the U.S. since
                  1996. Then, Jose Luis Ponce, the Cuban mission spokesman, was asked to
                  leave in retaliation for the expulsion of a U.S. diplomat from Havana.

                  In August 1996, Cuba expelled Robin Meyer, a diplomat with the political-
                  economic section of the U.S. mission in Havana. Her primary responsibility
                  was human rights.

                  Cuba said Meyer had carried out activities "incompatible with her diplomatic
                  status."

                    White House Correspondent Kelly Wallace, the Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.