Cuba Prisoner Gross Feels Abandoned by U.S., Wife Says

Cuba Prisoner Gross Feels Abandoned by U.S., Wife Says
By Nicole Gaouette Aug 5, 2014 6:00 AM GMT+0200

Alan Gross, the U.S. Agency for International Development subcontractor
jailed by Cuba for almost five years, is refusing to see U.S. government
officials, and his wife says he's lost the will to live.

"He sees no use in them coming anymore," Judy Gross said yesterday in an
interview. "They were able to bring him packages that I sent to him, but
other than that it hasn't improved or gotten him closer to getting home."

"He's just hopeless and needless to say, very, very disappointed in the
United States government," she said.

Gross, 65, was working to expand Internet access for Havana's Jewish
community when Cuban officials arrested him. He was accused of
undermining the Cuban state and in December 2009 was sentenced to 15
years in prison.

In a mid-July visit, when Judy Gross and their 27-year-old daughter came
to see him, he told them he didn't want them to come again, and that he
no longer needed the packages sent to him via the U.S. Interests Section
in Havana. Gross has refused to meet the new head of that office or
other officials.

"He feels they should do whatever it takes to get him home," she said. "
He was there on a U.S. project, but he feels like they're doing nothing,
he hasn't seen any evidence."

Asked about Gross yesterday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said
that the U.S. "keeps his case at the forefront of discussions with the
Cuban government, made clear the importance the United States places on
his welfare."

Advocating Release

"We engage also with a range of our foreign counterparts at the highest
levels and urge them to advocate for his release," Psaki said. "We
urgently reiterate our call to the Cuban government to release him
immediately."

Judy Gross said, "The answer is always, 'We're doing as much as we can,
and it's at the top of our list.' I'm not sure why they won't tell me
what they're doing. It makes me suspect that perhaps they're not doing
as much as we would hope."

She cited the release of Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. soldier taken hostage
for five years in Afghanistan and freed in a May prisoner exchange for
five Taliban prisoners. "That had to be really complicated," Judy Gross
said. "If they could do that with five Taliban, with Afghanistan who we
really have problems with," she asked why the U.S. can't do more for her
husband.

Cuban Spies

Groups have pushed the Obama administration to exchange Gross for three
activists from the 'Cuban Five,' spies who were jailed in 1998 for
infiltrating groups in Miami that had been planning terrorist actions
against the Cuban government. Two have been released on parole, and Cuba
has demanded the release of the remaining three. Cuban-American U.S.
lawmakers oppose any negotiations with Cuba.

"If President Obama wanted to, he could have Alan home tomorrow," Judy
Gross said. "Maybe it's not a priority with them, maybe they're worried
about lawmakers who really have a problem with Cuba," she said.

Her husband had been an early believer in President Barack Obama, she
said. During Obama's first presidential campaign, Gross took five weeks
off to work on his campaign in a part of Virginia that voted Democratic
for the first time. "That's irony," she said.

Gross's lawyer, Scott Gilbert, said yesterday that his client is
confined to a small cell 24 hours a day. "He's lost most of the vision
in his right eye," Gilbert said in a statement. "His hips are failing
and he can barely walk. He has stopped all attempts to exercise. Alan's
emotional deterioration has been severe," Gilbert said.

"Alan has had enough of life in a Cuban prison," said family spokeswoman
Jill Zuckman, a managing director of SKDKnickerbocker, a
strategic-communications firm in Washington. "Alan just wants this whole
ordeal to be over, even if it means taking his own life."

Source: Cuba Prisoner Gross Feels Abandoned by U.S., Wife Says -
Bloomberg -
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-05/cuba-prisoner-gross-feels-abandoned-by-u-s-wife-says.html