Wife urges release of U.S. contractor from Cuba

[Jimmy2]

The wife of U.S. government subcontractor Alan Gross, jailed in Havana since Dec. 3, has urged U.S. and Cuban officials to resolve his case when they meet for migration talks on Friday.

``Alan has done nothing wrong and we need him home,'' his wife of 40 years, Judy Gross, said in a calm voice in a video sent to news media Thursday.

Raúl Castro and the president of Cuba's legislature, Ricardo Alarcón, have suggested that the 60-year-old Gross was linked to U.S. intelligence agencies, though he has not been charged with any crime.

Judy Gross described her husband as a ``humanitarian'' who has done development work in some 50 countries and was ``only helping the Cuban Jewish community improve its communications and Internet access.''

Noting that senior U.S. and Cuban officials are scheduled to meet Friday in Havana, she added that she hoped ``they can get get together and mutually agree on a way to bring him home'' to Potomac, Md.

She added that she had spoken with her husband only three brief times since his Dec. 3 arrest -- the date previously had been reported as Dec. 4 or 5 -- and that his 86-year-old mother has been in failing health.

``We're hoping that you can help us find a way to get him back to the us,'' she said in a video made available to journalists by Chlopak Leonard Schechter and Associates, a public relations firm in Washington D.C.

Gross was in Cuba under a contract with Development Alternatives Inc., a suburban Washington company, which was contracted by the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2008 to promote civil society on the island.

But neither U.S. nor Cuban officials have detailed exactly what he was doing in Cuba.

A fact sheet provided by CLA said he was ``helping Cuba's tiny Jewish community set up an intranet so that they could communicate amongst themselves and with other Jewish communities abroad, and providing them with the ability to access the Internet.''

Knowledgeable U.S. government officials have said he delivered a satellite phone, capable of making telephone calls and accessing the Internet without having to go through the Cuban telecommunications system, tightly controlled and monitored by the government. Cuba has strict regulations on the importation and use of satellite phones.

Gross is a ``naive'' development expert who did not realize the serious implications of delivering the satellite phone to nongovernment groups in Cuba, said one official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

On Dec. 20, Castro said Gross was involved with ``sophisticated'' communications equipment. He has been held in Villa Marista, a Havana facility where serious security cases are investigated.

Gross' Congressional representatives meanwhile sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying that the migration talks would be ``an ideal forum for our government to forcefully [protest] . . . . . . Mr. Gross' detention and demand his immediate release.''

``The continued incarceration of Alan Gross serves as a significant barrier to any further progress [in relations] between Cuba and the United States,'' wrote Sens. Barbara Mikulski and Benjamin Cardin and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, all Democrats, in their Feb. 17 letter.

Craig Kelly, the No. 2 official in the State Department's Western Hemisphere Affairs section, is expected to meet with Cuban counterparts for migration talks resumed by the Obama administration after a lengthy suspension during the George W. Bush administration.

A State Department statement Wednesday said only that the talks would focus on ``how to best promote safe, legal and orderly migration'' between the two countries.

[Buch0]

"Gross is a ``naive'' development expert who did not realize the serious implications of delivering the satellite phone to nongovernment groups in Cuba, said one official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case."

That seems absolutely ludacris considering the circumstances.. Surely you would realise such extremities the Cuban government goes to to keep strict regulation on their telecommunications and that what he was doing would jeopardies such regulations.

[thechenman]

Seems like neither side wants harmony and a furthering of U.S./Cuba relations...