Cuban spy's ex-wife buys plane used to fly defectors

KEY WEST, Fla. -- The ex-wife of a Cuban spy placed the winning $7,000 bid Monday for a biplane that carried eight defectors here from the communist nation, saying she hoped to resell it for more money.

The auction was arranged by the Monroe County Sheriff's Office to help pay the $27.1 million the Cuban government owes Ana Margarita Martinez.

She said she bought the aging Antonov AN-2 Colt because bids were below the plane's estimated value of $40,000 to $60,000.

The crop-dusting plane was flown by the defectors to Key West on Nov. 11.

Cuba has demanded the United States return it and the people who took it. However, in December, a judge ordered the plane sold to partially pay the $27.1 million judgment awarded to Martinez under an anti-terrorism law.

The judge agreed with Martinez's claim that she was used as a political pawn by her ex-husband, Cuban spy Juan Pablo Roque, and the Cuban government.

Roque, posing as a defector, was sent to Florida to infiltrate groups opposed to the communist rule in Cuba. He returned to Cuba before he was indicted in absentia of being part of a Cuban spy ring.