US immigration authorities Wednesday ordered the deportation of a former Cuban government employee accused of persecuting dissidents in his communist-led home country. Luis Enrique Daniel Rodriguez, a former Cuban interior ministry employee, was detained in July after a judge issued a deportation order. Rodriguez, 37, has been held at an immigration detention facility in Miami. US authorities accuse him, among other things, of breaking into the homes of two Cuban dissidents in Havana, including the residence of Elizardo Sanchez, head of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, Rodriguez's attorneys said. But Sanchez has denied that Rodriguez took actions against him. Rodriguez's attorney say their client, who admitted having worked for the Cuban government, is a defector and denied he committed human right abuses.
"Human rights violators cannot and will not use the United States as a safe haven," said Jesus Torres, head of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency's Miami office. |