Defense attorneys for at least two of the alleged Cuban spies arrested in Miami two years ago have an unusual ally in court: the Cuban government, which has allowed some of its officials to testify through affidavits.

The officials are a lieutenant colonel from the Interior Ministry, a professor at the University of Havana, and a couple of agents who claim to have infiltrated exile organizations in South Florida.

The witnesses' intent is to show that the ``Wasp Network'' dismantled by the FBI in September 1998 was created to protect the island from terrorists -- not to spy on U.S. military installations, as the indictment charges.

``Terrorist groups among the Cuban émigrés constitute a real, present and tangible danger for the national security of Cuba and the United States,'' said José Luis Méndez, the university professor, in an affidavit submitted to federal court in Miami.

In a memorandum to U.S. District Judge Joan A. Lenard, defense attorney Joaquín Méndez (not related to the Cuban professor) said Cuba relayed to U.S. authorities the information it collected on the exile organizations.

Not only that, the lawyer said, the FBI recruited at least two of the alleged spies as informers to keep abreast of anti-Castro activities in Miami.

One was pilot Juan Pablo Roque, a Castro agent who came to Miami in 1992, infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue and returned surreptitiously to Cuba on Feb. 24, 1996, two days before Cuban warplanes shot down two of the organization's planes.

An FBI spokesman conceded at the time that the agency paid Roque almost $7,000 for information he provided.

``In fact, the evidence presented by the government shows that the federal authorities were as interested in the activities of these groups as the people accused of being Cuban spies,'' said Méndez.

The FBI never has admitted recruiting a second agent.

Two of the ``Wasp Network'' defendants, Rubén Campa and Luis Medina, submitted to the court statements from witnesses in Cuba, taken by a member of the defense team based in Puerto Rico. Those statements suggest that the exile groups represent a danger to Havana, thus justifying the presence of a network of informers in South Florida.

``All the documentation submitted so far by the [U.S.] government shows amply that Campa was not interested in American military installations or secrets,'' said Méndez, the attorney.

``Campa's alleged activities were intended to monitor the anti-Castro groups that are engaged in a series of campaigns to violently overthrow the regime of [President Fidel] Castro,'' he said.

According to the defense, individuals sent to Cuba by anti-Castro groups placed bombs in hotels and restaurants to harm the Cuban tourism industry. The individuals are not identified in the affidavits.

Another witness for the defense is Lt. Col. Roberto Hernández Caballero of the Cuban Interior Ministry, who investigated a wave of bombings in 1997.

After interrogating several suspects, including two Salvadorans who were sentenced to death last year for deploying seven bombs, Caballero concluded that the exile community was behind the campaign.

``I can categorically state that the plans to place bombs in Havana and in commercial airplanes bringing tourists [to Cuba] continue at this time,'' Caballero said in his deposition.

Both Caballero and Felipe Hernández, a security official at the Meliá-Cohiba Hotel in Havana, said tourist destinations in Cuba still receive telephoned bomb threats.

``The latest one came about 10 days ago,'' Hernández said.

The federal trial for four of the five defendants will begin in Miami on Sept. 5.