FBI agents had been trailing Montes since at least May 2001, and arrested her days after the September 11 attacks. In the course of the investigation they used wiretaps and broke into her apartment.

In March of this year Montes agreed to plead guilty on one count of conspiracy to commit espionage, a capital offense. Under the terms of the agreement, Montes has undergone months of debriefings with counterintelligence officers.

U.S. district judge Ricardo Urbina added a lecture on patriotism to his pronouncement of the sentence. "Today is a very sad day," he said, "for every American who suffers the betrayal of their country. If you can’t love your country, you should at least do it no harm."

At the sentencing, Montes told the court that "I believe our government’s policy towards Cuba is cruel and unfair.... We have displayed intolerance and contempt towards Cuba for most of the last four decades."

Since the overthrow of the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959 and the establishment of a workers and farmers government, Washington has carried out a four-decade policy of hostility toward Cuba’s socialist revolution, including an economic embargo, the organization of counterrevolutionary attacks, and military threats.

"I do not understand why we must continue to dictate how the Cubans should select their leaders, who their leaders cannot be, and what laws are appropriate in their land," explained Montes. "I did what I thought right to counter a grave injustice."

Prosecuting attorney Roscoe Howard declared himself "satisfied" with the outcome. He added that he was "disappointed," however, that Montes did not offer an apology to the court. "What we were all looking for is the recognition of the crime, the gravity of what she has done," he said. "She seemed not to really appreciate that."

Prosecutors acknowledged that Montes was not motivated by money and had received no financial rewards for her work. As part of her sentence, reported the Associated Press, she "must surrender all her government savings plus interest and any property that investigators could tie to her espionage."

Cuban foreign minister Felipe Perez Roque stated October 18 that he felt "profound respect and admiration for Ms. Ana Belen Montes. Her actions were moved by ethics and an admirable sense of justice."

Roque said he hopes that someday "it will be unnecessary for men and women of the moral stature of Ana Belen Montes and of the five Cuban heroes--also unjustly imprisoned in the United States--to sacrifice their lives, their families and their personal interests."

Last year five Cuban revolutionaries were convicted on frame-up conspiracy charges, ranging from conspiracy to commit espionage to conspiracy to commit murder. René González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, and Fernando González received jail sentences ranging from 15 years to a double life term.  
 
 
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