( CNN ) -- Rene Gonzalez , a Cuban convicted of spying in the United States , was released Friday after serving most of a 15-year sentence , a prison spokesman told CNN . Gonzalez was one of five convicted spies known as the `` Cuban Five '' who were arrested in 1998 . A Miami jury in 2001 convicted members of what was called the Wasp Network on charges they had spied on prominent Cuban-American exile leaders and U.S. military bases . The five were Gonzalez ; Ruben Campa , also known as Fernando Gonzalez ; Gerardo Hernandez ; Luis Medina ( also known as Ramon Labanino ) ; and Antonio Guerrero . Hernandez , the group 's leader , also was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder for engineering the shoot-down of two planes flown by the group Brothers to the Rescue in 1996 . Gonzalez is the first of the five to be released from prison . He was behind bars for 13 years and 26 days , said his attorney , Philip Horowitz . But he still has three years of probation to serve , said Neil Robinson , spokesman for the federal prison in Marianna , Florida . Gonzalez was freed about 4 a.m. , Horowitz said . `` I can not discuss or disclose what he is doing and where he is going in order to protect his personal safety , '' he said . `` Mr. Gonzalez is glad to be out but it is a bittersweet day because his four friends are still in prison . He wishes he could return to his family in Cuba as quickly as the judge permits . '' Gonzalez will appeal the conditions of his probation so that he may serve it in Cuba instead of the United States , Horowitz said . Gonzalez has a 25-year-old daughter and a 13-year-old daughter who was only 4 months old when he was arrested . During the trial , the defendants claimed they had spied as a way to defend Cuba from hardline anti-Castro groups in Miami they feared would attack the island . The case has been widely followed in Cuba , where the men were regarded as heroes and whose former leader , Fidel Castro , regularly advocated their release . Gonzalez was born on Chicago 's north side in 1956 , but his parents brought him to their native Cuba in 1961 so that the family could join Castro 's revolution . U.S. authorities accused the Wasp Network of spying on an American naval base in Key West , Florida , and militant anti-Castro Cuban groups in Miami . Throughout Cuba , Gonzalez and the four other convicted spies are considered `` political prisoners , '' unjustly punished in American courts . They are known simply as `` Los Cinco , '' or the Cuban Five , and their faces appear on billboards . State-controlled Cuban media labels them `` terrorism fighters '' because they infiltrated Cuban-American groups in South Florida that the Cuban government alleges was bent on terrorizing the island in the 1990s . That era marked severe financial difficulties for Cuba because the country lost subsidies from the collapsed Soviet Union . The Cuban government renewed its tourism sector to bring in hard cash . But several Cuban tourist destinations were bombed during that decade , and the Castro regime lodged a protest with the United States over what it claimed were Cuban exiles in America financing the attacks . CNN 's Michael Martinez , Gustavo Valdes and Bill Mears contributed to this report .
Rene Gonzalez wants to serve his probation in Cuba . He had served about 13 years of a 15-year sentence . He must serve three years of probation .