U.S. Says Spy Suspect Could Lose Immunity, Face Arrest

                  By Karen DeYoung
                  Washington Post Staff Writer

                  The United States and Cuba appeared on a diplomatic collision course
                  yesterday as Washington insisted that Havana withdraw a consular official
                  accused of spying and Havana refused to comply, saying the man was
                  innocent and ready to defend himself in a U.S. court.

                  State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said he believed the Cuban
                  position was unprecedented and a violation of international conventions.

                  If the consular official, Jose Imperatori, fails to leave by the deadline of
                  1:30 p.m. Saturday, Rubin warned, his diplomatic immunity will be lifted.
                  "He would [then] be subject to our laws, and if there were grounds for his
                  arrest, he would be arrested," Rubin said.

                  The United States last Saturday ordered the withdrawal of Imperatori, a
                  vice consul at the Cuban Interests Section here, charging that he was an
                  intelligence contact for Mariano Faget, a U.S. Immigration and
                  Naturalization Service official in Miami. Faget, who immigrated to this
                  country from Cuba as a child, was arrested last Thursday and charged with
                  spying for Cuba.

                  In a statement issued over the weekend, the Cuban Interests Section said it
                  was determined that Imperatori "remain in the United States to testify and
                  prove full falseness of that accusation no matter what the consequences
                  might be." A Cuban spokesman reiterated that position yesterday.

                  If his diplomatic immunity is lifted, Imperatori could be subpoenaed to
                  testify in the Faget case or in pending court actions involving Elian
                  Gonzalez, the 6-year-old Cuban boy whose Miami relatives are defying an
                  INS order to return him to Cuba. U.S. officials said deportation
                  proceedings also could be brought against Imperatori as an illegal alien.

                  A lengthy editorial yesterday in Cuba's Communist Party newspaper,
                  Granma, questioned the "coincidence" of Faget's arrest just a few days
                  before a federal court hearing in the Gonzalez case.

                  Rubin said Cuba's allegation that the spy charges were a U.S.
                  "smokescreen" to disrupt the Gonzalez case were "utter nonsense."

                  In the Granma editorial, Cuba acknowledged that Imperatori and other
                  Cuban officials had numerous contacts with Faget both by telephone and in
                  person in New York and Miami. It said the head of the Interests Section,
                  Fernando Remirez, first met Faget at a gathering convened by New York
                  businessman Peter Font.

                  Font has been identified in news reports as Faget's alleged intelligence
                  conduit to the Cuban government, but no charges have been brought
                  against him.

                  The Granma editorial described Cuba's contacts with Font and Faget as
                  normal business. Font, it said, was interested in investing in Cuba. Faget,
                  whose job was to process applicants for political asylum, was a contact on
                  immigration issues who also was interested in investment in Cuba after his
                  upcoming retirement, according to the newspaper.

                  A U.S. official noted that U.S.-based Cuban diplomats traveling outside of
                  Washington and New York are required to inform the State Department of
                  their plans 72 hours before departure. The required form asks if any
                  out-of-town meetings with U.S. officials are planned, but at no time did
                  Imperatori indicate he was meeting with Faget, the official said.

                  Meanwhile, a hearing in a federal lawsuit brought against the INS and
                  Attorney General Janet Reno in the Elian Gonzalez case was postponed
                  yesterday after the judge was hospitalized for a possible stroke. Miami
                  District Judge William M. Hoeveler was replaced by K. Michael Moore,
                  who said he would begin hearings March 6 on a petition by the boy's
                  Miami relatives to order Reno to consider granting him political asylum.