MIAMI — American contractor Alan Gross has tried a hunger strike to bring attention to his cause. He's tried telling people he's lost five teeth, 100 pounds and is losing sight in one eye. He's even stopped accepting visits from his wife and daughters.
Despite those efforts, Gross remains in a Cuban prison, five years after Cuban authorities arrested him in Havana for distributing communications equipment to members of the island's small Jewish community.
Gross was working as a subcontractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development, so he's been urging the Obama administration to do whatever it can to secure his release.
On Wednesday, his wife, Judy Gross, made one more plea on the fifth anniversary of his capture. "Enough is enough," she said in a statement. "My husband has paid a terrible price for serving his country and community. Alan is resolved that he will not endure another year imprisoned in Cuba, and I am afraid that we are at the end. After five years of literally wasting away, Alan is done. It is time for President Obama to bring Alan back to the United States now; otherwise it will be too late."
The State Department has insisted that it will not entertain the idea of a prisoner swap, an arrangement that Cuban authorities have floated in the past.
The Cuban government has insisted that American authorities wrongfully imprisoned five of its citizens, known as "The Cuban Five." The men were convicted in U.S. federal court on espionage charges and have become national heroes in Cuba, where their images are painted on billboards and walls throughout the island. Two of the men have completed their prison terms and returned to Cuba. The other three remain in U.S. prisons, where one faces a life term.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf lamented the "difficult conditions" Gross is living under but did not elaborate on any efforts to win his freedom.
"It is gravely disappointing, especially in light of its professed goal of providing Cubans with Internet access, that the Cuban government has not allowed Mr. Gross to return to his family, where he belongs," Harf said in a statement. "We reiterate our call on the Cuban government, echoing foreign leaders and even Cuba's allies, to release Alan Gross immediately."
The White House also called for Cuba to release Gross, saying in a statement Wednesday that the U.S. remains "deeply concerned" about his health. It also said Gross' release on humanitarian grounds "would remove an impediment to more constructive relations between the United States and Cuba."
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said the anniversary of Gross' imprisonment is a reminder that the "Cuban regime remains as repressive as ever."
"All free people and free nations around the world have a moral duty to advocate for Alan Gross' immediate, unconditional freedom, and make clear that the freedom to access and communicate via an uncensored Internet is a fundamental human right," Rubio said in a statement.
Gross was arrested on Dec. 3, 2009, while on a USAID contract to improve communications on the island, where Internet use is heavily restricted by the communist government. He was bringing satellite phones and computer equipment to the Jewish community on the island and was arrested, charged with "destabilizing" and "subverting" the government, and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
In the years since, he has been visited by relatives, his attorney and a stream of U.S. government officials, most recently in November by Sens. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Tom Udall, D-N.M. But the senators, like others before them, said they heard no indication from Cuban officials that there were any plans to release Gross.
His case was further inflamed when the Associated Press uncovered this year a separate USAID program known as the "Cuban Twitter." The program, which operated from 2009 to 2012, was designed to use social media to help a new generation of dissidents on the island, and involved setting up a front company, routing money through the Cayman Islands and creating elaborate cover stories for people working in the program.
With seemingly no progress on his case, Gross has grown more desperate. He started a hunger strike in April to protest his imprisonment, but stopped after nine days when his 91-year-old mother asked him to quit out of fear for his already-diminished health. In May, when Gross turned 65, he vowed that it would be the last birthday he spends in a Cuban prison "one way or the other," according to his lawyer, Scott Gilbert.
By August, when his wife and youngest daughter went to visit, Gross said could not take life in prison any longer. He told them goodbye and asked them not to come see him again. They haven't seen him since.
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