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Spy’s parents search for son after Cuba-US deal

In this undated photo provided by the Sarraff family shows Rolando Sarraff Trujillo in an unknown location. After the speeches on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2014 by Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro, the Villa Marista prison staff in Cuba told the Sarraff family that Rolando had been freed at dawn and they didn't know where he was. Before his downfall, Sarraff a U.S. spy in Cuba, helped the U.S. crack the "Wasp Network," in Florida, a Cuban spy ring that included members of the Cuban Five, the last three of whom were released in exchange for the Cuban spy. (AP Photo/Courtesy Sarraff family)
In this undated photo provided by the Sarraff family shows Rolando Sarraff Trujillo in an unknown location. After the speeches on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2014 by Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro, the Villa Marista prison staff in Cuba told the Sarraff family that Rolando had been freed at dawn and they didn't know where he was. Before his downfall, Sarraff a U.S. spy in Cuba, helped the U.S. crack the "Wasp Network," in Florida, a Cuban spy ring that included members of the Cuban Five, the last three of whom were released in exchange for the Cuban spy. (AP Photo/Courtesy Sarraff family)

By Associated Press 4 min read

HAVANA (AP) – The parents of convicted spy Rolando Sarraff Trujillo feared the worst when their son failed to call home from prison and they were told he had been taken away at dawn. But officials assured the couple that their son was now better off.

Sarraff was publicly identified by a former intelligence official in the United States on Thursday as the unnamed spy traded for three Cuban intelligence agents jailed in the United States, one who U.S. President Barack Obama hailed as one of Washington’s most valuable assets.

But neither Cuban nor American officials have confirmed that Sarraff was spirited off the island and his parents have not heard from their son since he supposedly was freed.

“They are saying his name out there,” his mother, Odesa Trujillo, told The Associated Press at her home in Havana. “I don’t care where he is, just that he’s in good health.”

Chris Simmons, the former chief of a Cuban counterintelligence unit for the U.S Defense Intelligence Agency, identified Sarraff as a cryptologist in Cuba’s Directorate of Intelligence working on “agent communications,” the codes used by Cuban spies abroad to communicate with their handlers in Havana.