The government alleges in the indictment that the Alvarezes “served as agents of the DI [Cuban intelligence] and its predecessor agencies by gathering information within the United States on matters of interest to the Cuban government, informing on anti-Castro individuals and groups and other elements of the Cuban exile community in South Florida, and carrying out other operational directives.” Each is charged with one count of acting as an agent of “the Republic of Cuba, without providing prior notification to the Attorney General, in violation of Title 18” of the U.S. Code.

If convicted, the two could each face up to 10 years in jail and a maximum fine of a quarter million dollars. An arraignment is set for January 19.

The indictments have generated sensational headlines across the country. The media have largely reported as fact the allegations by government attorneys. “The Alvarez case: Fidel’s loyal lackeys,” was the headline of an editorial in the January 12 Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, for example.

Attorney Steven Chaykin, who represents Carlos Alvarez, said the reputations of two academics were being destroyed by a “McCarthy-like hysteria,” fueled by government misstatements. “The presumption of innocence has disappeared,” Chaykin told the Miami Herald.

According to various news reports, between 30 and 80 friends and colleagues showed up at the courthouse January 9 to support the couple.

“There are serious and troubling questions about these charges—their timing and their purpose,” said Chaykin. FBI agents and federal prosecutors are accusing the couple with transmitting information about Miami’s exile community and groups such as the Cuban American National Foundation and Brothers to the Rescue. They also charge that they provided Cuban officials with the identity of an FBI employee.

According to the Mexico City daily La Jornada, Chaykin said, “Both agreed to be interrogated (by FBI agents) and in the end the government released them.” The Miami Herald reported that each of the two spoke to FBI agents last June and July.

U.S. assistant attorney Brian Frazier alleges that Carlos Alvarez had “spied for Cuba” since 1977 and Elsa Alvarez since 1982, and claims that the couple’s travels to Cuba on U.S. government-authorized educational trips were a “pretext to do other things.” Federal prosecutors claim that Alvarez used his trips to Cuba to trade information with “Fidel Castro’s intelligence agents.”

Chaykin told La Jornada that since the FBI is not charging the Alvarezes with revealing secret or delicate information, “it remains to be seen if someone can be characterized as an ‘agent’ if all they do is exchange public information, and if so, then it becomes a case against the freedom of speech.”
 
 
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