Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., says that the United States has not found proof that Cuba launched an attack with an unknown weapon against American officials in the country.
After meeting with Cuban officials, including Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, Flake said that the FBI told the officials that they have found no evidence that the mysterious illnesses experienced by U.S. diplomats and agents were due to attacks.
“The Cuban Interior Ministry is saying the FBI has told them there is no evidence of a sonic attack, even though that term is being used, attack, there is no evidence of it,” Flake told the Associated Press. “There’s no evidence that somebody purposefully tried to harm somebody. Nobody is saying that these people didn’t experience some event, but there’s no evidence that that was a deliberate attack by somebody, either the Cubans or anybody else."
“As I said, I won’t talk about what I have seen in a classified setting, but nothing is inconsistent with what the Cubans have said, and I think the FBI would say that," Flake added.
Flake is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and an advocate of easing of relations with the Cubans. He said that classified briefings has backed up Cuban claims that they were not behind the illnesses, which struck 24 U.S. officials and their spouses in Havana starting in 2016.
Due to the illnesses and health risk, the U.S. withdrew most of their diplomats and officials out of Havana and did the same to Cuban diplomats in Washington. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said in the past that he is "convinced" the attacks were targeted.
