Cuba: Espionage charges against U.S. immigration official a 'smoke screen'
         
                  From staff and wire reports

                  MIAMI -- Cuba's interests section in Washington says there is no truth to
                  the espionage charges against Cuban-American Mariano Faget Jr., a senior
                  U.S. immigration official.

                  On Friday U.S. prosecutors charged Faget, a Cuban-American, with
                  violating the federal Espionage Act by communicating national defense
                  secrets to a Cuban government official and with making false statements.
                  Both charges together carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

                  "It's a calumny. It's a lie," said Cuban interests section spokesman Luis
                  Fernandez. "They're trying to mount a campaign against Cuba, use a
                  smoke screen to try to jeopardize Elian Gonzalez's return to Cuba. It's
                  incredible."

                  The INS said Faget's case had nothing to do with Gonzalez, the 6-year-old
                  Cuban boy who is the focus of a custody battle between his father in Cuba
                  and relatives in Miami.

                  Friends and family show support

                  Faget, 54, appeared in court wearing prison-issue khakis. He caught the eye
                  of some of the 50 friends and family members who appeared as character
                  witnesses.

                  "I'm a friend of the family, and he's innocent," said one. "He's a good man,
                  a good father, a hard working man."

                  U.S. magistrate Stephen Brown granted federal prosecutors six days to prepare
                  arguments for a bail hearing set for February 24. He ordered Faget held until then.

                  Prosecutors said Faget was a flight risk and a danger to the community, and they
                  planned to argue that he be denied bond.

                  Defense attorney Joel Kaplan would not comment on Faget's case.

                  Arrest grew out of FBI sting

                  The arrest of Faget, a Cuban-born supervisor in the Miami office of the Immigration
                  and Naturalization Service, came 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 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 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.

                  Authorities said Faget also had contacts with Cuban intelligence officials,
                  including a diplomat from the Cuban interests section in Washington.

                  Agents secretly watched as Faget met with that diplomat for two hours at a
                  Miami airport bar February 19, 1999, and videotaped his meeting with
                  another Cuban agent at a Miami hotel in October, the FBI said in an
                  affidavit.

                  According to court papers, Faget and the New York businessman are
                  officers of America-Cuba Inc., a Florida company whose stated purpose
                  is to engage in future business transactions with Cuba, if and when a U.S.
                  trade embargo is lifted.

                  Jose Goyanes, listed in state records as a Miami-based executive of
                  America-Cuba, said Friday he was surprised by the charges against Faget.

                  "I am shocked. The guy is a family man. He works for the government,"
                  Goyanes said. "This is the last thing I ever thought. The courts will prove him
                  innocent when it is all over."