Cuba: News chief arranged 'spy meeting'

A former news agency bureau chief has been accused of arranging a meeting on a Havana street between an undercover Cuban agent and a US diplomat who, it is claimed, was really a CIA operative.

A programme on Cuban state television dedicated to uncovering supposed plots against Cuba featured a dissident named Raul Capote who described himself as "Agent Daniel", the Cuban intelligence agent who purportedly took part in the meeting.

Mr Capote said he attended a reception with Reuters' then bureau chief, Anthony Boadle, at the German Embassy, without giving a date. The two left the party by foot two hours later, he said. "We walked until we arrived at a dark place where a car was parked. There was a shadow inside, a man," Mr Capote said. He said it was Mark Sullivan, a diplomat at the US Interests Section in Havana in 2006-2008 who the programme accused of being a CIA agent.

The programme said that Mr Boadle served as a liaison between Mr Capote and the CIA. It added that during Mr Boadle's stay in Cuba from 2002 to 2008, he published reports "favouring local counter-revolutionaries". Mr Capote said that in time he began working with the CIA himself – although he was acting as a double agent.

The Reuters office in Havana had no immediate comment, nor was there any reaction from the US Interests Section. The Cuban government also declined to comment.