Wednesday, 16 October 2002---The CI Centre was there at the 10:00 am sentencing of  intelligence analyst Ana Montes of the Defense Intelligence Agency in courtroom 12 at the US District Courthouse for Washington, DC. Ricardo M. Urbina was the presiding judge. About 40 people were in attendance, including US Attorney Roscoe Howard, Jr.  Montes’s lawyer was the famed Plato Cacheris, lawyer to Rick Ames, Bob Hanssen and Monica Lewinsky.

Montes came into the courtroom dressed in a faded black and white horizontal striped jumpsuit with a white long sleeve shirt underneath. She looked embarrassingly out of place in the stereotypical prison garb amid the all-male lawyers on both sides who were in dark suits and ties. Yet she came in quickly, all-business like and never looked at the audience. She sat upright and attentively, looking at the judge, her face showing no sign of emotion.

Cacheris made a statement that his client had fulfilled her obligations and cooperated with the US government without reservation and that the government has said they are fully satisfied.

The prosecution then commended the "excellent work of counterintelligence agents in this country" in finding this spy. It was irrelevant what political beliefs Montes holds, they said. What would be far more relevant is an apology, and they left it at that.

Then Montes made her statement, which was about five minutes long. Looking directly at the judge, the judge looking directly at her, she began to read from prepared paper, with a US Marshal standing behind her.

“All the world is one country,” she said, where one should love their neighbors as much as oneself. This should be the guide to relations between all countries, where there is tolerance for, and understanding, and treating other nations the way we should be treated: with respect. The United States never did this, she claimed. So she decided to obey her conscience rather than the law. She felt that US government laws against Cuba were cruel and unfair and felt morally obligated to defend Cuba. The US has displayed intolerance in the last 40 years and has never respected Cuba’s right to develop in its own way. She asked why the US tries to dictate who leads that country and what laws the country should have. Why can’t we let Cuba decide its own way, she wondered. Montes admitted that her giving classified information to Cuba to defend itself was probably morally wrong and not justified. But that she did what she thought was right to counter a greater injustice. Her desire is that the United States and Cuba have normal relations based on tolerance, understanding, mutual respect and brotherly love. She noted that all the nations need to have these qualities instead of the hatred that now exists. Cuba wants dignity and respect and she thought a change in US policy towards Cuba would allow Cuba to drop its defensive measures, permit our nations to work together in our "one world country—one world homeland.”

After Montes sat back down, Judge Ricardo Urbina very softly said that today was a very sad day. Sad for Ms. Montes, her family, her loved ones, and every American who suffered from her betrayal of the United States. “If you cannot love your country,” he said to her, “at least you should do it not wrong. You decided to put the US in harms way; you must pay the penalty.”

Judge Urbina then sentenced her to 300 months in prison (25 years), and waived the fine because there was no way she could pay it he said. She did have to pay $100 for a special assessment fee for the Clerk of the Court. She forfeits any government contributions to her Thrift Savings Program, any interests, assets and property. Upon her release, she will be on five years probation and will be required to perform 500 hours of Community Service. She will undergo regular drug testing. Authorities will be allowed to do unannounced searches and checks of her computer including retrieval and copying all her data on hard drives and external drives. She must allow them to install hardware and software that will monitor her computer use and she must pay for this equipment herself. She is not allowed to possess or use any data encryption tools. A daily log of everything she does on her computer must be written down. She will not be allowed to use any computers at home or at work that has an online service to the internet without prior approval. She cannot receive any benefits from foreign entities and cannot work for the US government or contractors nor foreign governments. Her income tax returns will be reviewed. She is to have no direct or indirect contact with foreign agents. She has a right to an appeal within ten days.

Cacheris said that his client requested prisons in either Tallahassee or Danbury. The prosecution had no objection and the judge agreed. (Federal Corrections Institutions in Tallahassee, FL or Danbury, Connecticut, see Bureau of Prisons)

All in attendance rose as the judge left the chamber and Montes walked out with the marshals. She never looked back.

A last note, while a few reporters were in attendance in the courtroom, today the CI Centre has only been receiving calls from the media requesting comment about possible terrorism links to the Maryland serial sniper. As counterintelligence is more in our purview, we've been telling them that a major spy was sentenced to prison today. Ana Montes was the Defense Intelligence Agency’s top Cuba analyst. For 16 years, the entire time she worked at DIA, she was a clandestine agent of the Cuban intelligence service, conducting clandestine spy tradecraft to pass classified US government documents to Cuba. And she remains completely unrepentant about her actions. As DIA’s senior Cuba analyst, she would have had regular contact with other senior Cuba analysts in the US Intelligence Community. A spy at this level and for this long is astounding. It also shows men aren’t the only spies, Russia is not the only threat, and people don’t always spy for money. This is an incredibly useful counterintelligence awareness case study, but unfortunately its coverage in the media has been eclipsed, first by 9/11 and now by the Maryland sniper. We hope that the government recognizes the importance of this case for counterintelligence and security awareness and will someday provide more information about her recruitment that led her to today—the first day of her next 25 years in prison.

Her statement made in court

©2002 The Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies