The wife of Alan Gross says he may not survive Cuban jail

Posted on Wednesday, 09.12.12

The wife of Alan Gross says he may not survive Cuban jail

Judy Gross, who recently returned from seeing with her jailed husband in
Cuba, says he looked worse during her previous visit.
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

The wife of U.S. government subcontractor Alan Gross, serving a 15-year
prison term in Cuba, says she recently visited him in Havana and fears
"he is not going to survive this terrible ordeal" and urged Raúl Castro
to free him.

"I have just returned from visiting Alan in Cuba, and I am devastated by
his appearance," Judy Gross declared in a brief statement. "Alan's
health continues to deteriorate. He has lost 105 pounds and developed
degenerative arthritis and a mass behind his right shoulder blade."

"While his spirit remains strong, I fear he is not going to survive this
terrible ordeal. I beg President Castro, as a husband and father
himself, to put an end to our anguish and let Alan come home to his
loving family, including his dying mother," she added.

Gross, 63, of Potomac, Md., was arrested Dec. 3, 2009 in Havana and
sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of undermining the
"integrity" of Cuba's national security by delivering sophisticated
satellite phones to Cuban Jews on behalf of the U.S. government. His
mother and one of his daughters are battling cancer.

Cuban laws make it a crime to cooperate with the U.S. Agency for
International Development's Cuba democracy programs, alleging that they
amount to thinly varnished efforts to topple the communist system.

Judy Gross' statement was accompanied by an announcement from her
husband's new U.S. attorney, international human rights lawyer Jared
Genser in Washington, that signaled a more aggressive legal and
publicity campaign to win his release.

Genser has filed a petition with the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary
Detention to rule Gross' detention violates Cuba's obligations under the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, while the Gross
family has launched the Web page www.BringAlanHome.org.

Judy Gross initially kept a relatively low profile as she pushed for her
husband's freedom, apparently to avoid angering the Cuban government.
She usually called for his release as a humanitarian gesture, and seldom
criticized the justice of his incarceration.

Genser, who said he has been involved in human rights cases in China and
Myanmar, the former Burma, said Judy Gross hired him about six weeks ago
because she "decided to go in a different direction."

"Alan's detention is in flagrant violation of international law," Genser
said in a statement. The ruling of the Cuban court that convicted Gross
showed "he did nothing wrong and is merely being punished because of the
Cuban government's dislike of the U.S. government."

"Maybe quiet diplomacy made sense at the beginning," he told El Nuevo
Herald by telephone from Washington, D.C. "But now it's almost three
years, and we'll take whatever actions are necessary to gain his release."

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/09/12/2997302/the-wife-of-alan-gross-says-he.html