Cuba – Jailed American Wants to be Swapped for Cuban Spies

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    Cuba – US contractor Alan Gross, jailed in Cuba for the past two years, wants to be exchanged for five Cuban spies being held in the United States, a rabbi who saw him in Havana wrote Monday.

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    The “Cuban Five” espionage ring was broken up in 1998 in Florida, and the men were convicted of espionage and sent to prison three years later. The five are considered heroes in Cuba.

    Gross, who is Jewish, was sentenced in March to 15 years in prison on charges he violated Cuba’s “independence or territorial integrity” in a case that has soured US-Cuban relations.

    “Having learned about the recent swap of (Israeli soldier) Gilad Shalit for more than 1,000 imprisoned Palestinians, (Gross) felt that the US and Cuba could do the same for him and the ‘Cuban Five,’ five Cubans convicted of spying and serving sentences in the US from 15 years to life,” said Rabbi David Shneyer in a message to his congregation just outside the US capital.

    The US prisoner follows Jewish festivals in his cell, and one of his Cuban cellmates fasted with him during Yom Kippur, Shneyer said.

    The high-profile cases have been the biggest obstacles to improving historically strained US relations with Cuba, the only one-party communist regime in the Americas. The countries have not had full diplomatic ties since 1961.

    Havana considers the “Cuban Five” political prisoners and has lobbied intensely for their release.


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    jpeditor
    jpeditor
    12 years ago

    Odd that this story says Gross himself is pushing to trade for the 5 spies.

    Castro-loving American communists (“progressives”) at WOLA were pushing for this weeks ago.