Cubans Say They Want To Resolve Gross Issue
Jailed American Jewish contractor Alan Gross visited Cuba at least five times in one year to set up wireless Internet connections, according to a report citing leaked court documents.
The report Thursday by The Associated Press comes two days after Juan Lamigueiro of the Cuban interests section in Washington posted a letter on the Cuban Foreign Ministry website saying that “the Cuban government has engaged the U.S. government on its willingness to find a humanitarian solution to the case of Mr. Alan Gross on a reciprocal humanitarian basis.” The statement is believed to be referring to the so-called “Cuban Five,” spies arrested in the United States in 1998, which Cuba has been rumored to have asked the U.S. to swap in exchange for Gross.
Gross visited Cuba five times in 2009, the year he was arrested, and his movements there had been tracked since 2004, according to a filing with the court, apparently from Gross’ sentencing, the AP reported. The document was published on the U.S.-based blog Cafe Fuerte, and its authenticity has been neither confirmed nor denied.
The document alleges that Gross recruited other Americans to help bring restricted telecommunications equipment into Cuba.
Gross is serving a 15-year prison sentence in Cuba. He has been jailed since he was arrested in 2009 as he was leaving Cuba.
Gross’ family and U.S. State Department officials say that Gross was in the country on a U.S. Agency for International Development contract to help the country’s 1,500 Jews communicate with other Jewish communities using the Internet. The main Jewish groups in Cuba have denied any contact with or knowledge of Gross or the program.
He reportedly is in poor health and has lost more than 100 pounds.
Gross was not included on a list released last month of nearly 3,000 prisoners whom Cuban leader Raoul Castro said he would release on humanitarian grounds.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
