Widow of dissident killed in Cuba sues admitted Cuban agent

MIAMI — The widow of Oswaldo Payá, a prominent Cuban opposition leader who is widely believed to have died in a car crash caused by Cuban state security officials, filed a civil lawsuit in Miami on Thursday against Victor Manuel Rocha, a former U.S. ambassador who has agreed to plead guilty to charges of acting as an unregistered agent of Cuba, including at the time of Payá’s death in 2012.

“I seek what I have sought all along: for the truth, for justice, and for the regime and its accomplices to stop acting with impunity,” Ofelia Acevedo said in a statement.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in MiamiDade circuit court, seeks compensation for the wrongful death of Payá, which it claims was “a direct and proximate result of (Rocha’s) actions as a covert agent for the Cuban terrorist dictatorship.”

Payá, the founder of the Christian Liberation Movement, won international recognition for his work defending human rights, opposing Fidel Castro and promoting the Varela Project, an attempt to use Cuba’s constitution to promote civil and political liberties on the island. For that work, several dissidents linked to the project were arrested in 2003. Payá was not imprisoned, but he and his family faced constant harassment that ended with his death in a car crash in July 2012.

In a landmark conclusion after a delayed investigation spanning a decade, the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights, part of the Organization of American States, said the Cuban government bears responsibility for Payá’s death and that it was politically motivated. The commission said there was “serious and sufficient evidence to conclude that state agents participated” in his death and that of a fellow member of the Christian Liberation Movement, Harold Cepero, who was also in the car.

“Mr. Payá posed one of the most legitimate and serious threats to Fidel Castro’s dictatorship. For this, Fidel and Raul Castro ordered Mr. Payá’s murder,” the lawsuit filed Thursday says. “The assassination could not have been undertaken by the Cuban dictatorship with impunity absent the aid and comfort (Rocha) provided to the regime.”

Rocha, a former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia who held positions at the U.S. embassy in Havana and the National Security Council during his long career in the foreign service, was a special adviser to the head of the Pentagon’s Southern Command, based in Doral, at the time of Payá’s death.