HAVANA: The Cuban government has given a US diplomat access to a jailed American citizen accused of providing communications equipment to dissident groups while working as a government contractor, a US official in Havana said Tuesday.
The case has drawn denunciations from Cuban President Raul Castro and further strained US-Cuba relations after months of slow but steady progress toward easing their half-century diplomatic standoff.
The visit by a consular official took place Monday at an undisclosed location where the American is being held following his arrest in early December, according to a spokeswoman at the US Interests Section, which Washington maintains in Havana instead of an embassy. “We were given access by the Cubans yesterday,” Gloria Berbena said. “He was visited by a consular representative from the US Interests Section.”
State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the Obama administration remains “focused on the welfare of the detained US citizen.” Both refused to give any further details on the encounter, the detained man’s whereabouts or his condition, citing federal privacy laws. Neither government has identified him. The State Department said previously that he was working as a subcontractor for the Maryland-based economic development organization Development Alternatives Inc.
Jim Boomgard, the company’s president and chief executive, said he was part of a new USAID program intended to “strengthen civil society in support of just and democratic governance in Cuba.”
