CIA whistle-blower dies in Cuba

Mr Agee worked for the CIA in several Latin American countries

A former CIA operative who exposed the agency's undercover operations in Latin America and later settled in Cuba has died aged 72.

Philip Agee did not survive surgery for perforated ulcers, his wife said.

Mr Agee worked for the CIA for 12 years before resigning in 1969 because he disagreed with US support for Latin American dictatorships.

He caused outrage by naming former colleagues in a book called Inside the Company: CIA Diary.

The book, published in 1975, included a 22-page list of purported CIA operatives.

The US government said he was a traitor and that some of the people he named were later murdered - an assertion that Mr Agee denied.

He settled in Cuba in the 1980s after being refused residency by several European states.

In 2000, he helped set up a travel agency that sought to bring Americans to Cuba, in violation of a US trade embargo.

The Cuban Communist Party newspaper said Mr Agee died on Monday night. It called him "a loyal friend of Cuba and fervent defender of the peoples' fight for a better world".