Parole Granted for Cuban-American ‘Spy’ Alina Lopez Miyares

Portrait of Alina López Miyares, the Cuban-American teacher who was sentenced on the island to 13 years in prison for the crime of espionage. (Capture)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 15 July 2022 — A military court granted parole to Cuban-American Alina López Miyares, sentenced in 2017 to spend 13 years in prison for the crime of espionage. The order bases the change on the pianist and teacher’s “good behavior in prison,” according to the document, to which CiberCuba had access.

López Miyares, 62-years-old and with hypertension, will not be able to leave the island until 2030, which is when her sentence ends, according to what is read in the order, dated July 8. In addition, it states that the parole can be revoked for “misconduct” or “declaration of dangerousness.”

Eight months before this resolution, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions of the United Nations Human Rights Council denounced that López Miyares was tried by a military court while she was a civilian.

The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation considers that the professor was imprisoned for “political reasons,” for which she and her husband, Félix Martín Milanés Fajardo, a retired diplomat, were included in the list of political prisoners.

The independent lawyer Edilio Hernández Herrera, coordinator of the NGO Grupo Jurídico de Ayuda Ciudadana, told CiberCuba that López Miyares will live in a rental house located in El Vedado, Havana, although the exit documents from the Ceiba 4 women’s prison stated she would reside in Centro Habana.

Cuban justice considered López Miyares, born in Havana in 1959, guilty of treason and espionage for revealing the names of Cuban operatives to the FBI. During her trial, in October 2017, Department 1 of the Cuban Counterintelligence indicated that she was being investigated along with her husband for providing secret information, according to Radio Televisión Martí.

According to her son, Michael Peralta, the woman was deceived. He told The New York Times that his mother’s ingenuity could have been a factor in Milanés’ tricking her.

López Miyares was 20-years-old when she met Félix Milanés Fajardo at a meeting. Although they took different paths, they met again and, in 2007, they married.

The American newspaper details that Milanés, sentenced to 17 years in prison, confessed to having been a Cuban intelligence agent, which prevented him from leaving the island, which is why López Miyares made weekend and school holiday trips to Cuba for 10 years. Court records, which show access to her diary, point to her husband as an alcoholic who was financially dependent on her.

A family member said that, while in prison, Milanés called López Miyares to travel to Havana. She did so and, just as she got off the plane, she was arrested and tried for espionage.

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