Cuba seeks 20 years for U.S. contractor

Cuba seeks 20 years for U.S. contractor

By William Booth
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, February 4, 2011; 9:09 PM

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Cuban prosecutors announced Friday that they will seek a 20-year jail term for U.S. government contractor Alan Gross, who was arrested more than a year ago for distributing satellite communication equipment to the island's Jewish community.

Despite emotional pleas by his wife for his release and tough talk by the Obama administration, prosecutors said they would charge Gross with "acts against the integrity and independence." Gross has been held in a Cuban jail cell since December 2009.

The detention of the 61-year-old Maryland resident has dampened attempts to improve relations between old adversaries in Havana and Washington. The announcement by Cuban state media on Friday via a government-run Web site will likely freeze further efforts by the Obama administration to soften its stance toward Cuba.

Arturo Valenzuela, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, recently said it would be "very difficult to move to greater engagement in the context where they have continued to hold Alan Gross."

Gross, who lived in Potomac with his wife and has two daughters, was arrested while working to provide satellite-phone and computer gear to Cuban Jews to help them communicate with Jews abroad. It was part of a secretive American democracy-promotion program that grew during the George W. Bush administration under the auspices of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

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