Gross, 61, is desperate to get home to help his daughter, who is in her twenties and was diagnosed with cancer this summer, but there has been little or no progress reported in what have been at best sketchy talks between Washington and Havana.
US officials say they have requested Gross’ release on a number of occasions, but have never received a response or an explanation of the case against him. He is said to have lost 90 pounds and suffers several health problems.
Cuban officials have accused Gross, detained on Dec. 3 last year, of illegally bringing in satellite communications equipment and perhaps spying during what his family has said were five trips to the island in the nine months before his arrest.
His work was funded by a US program promoting political change in Cuba. But Washington has said Gross was merely a do-gooder spreading Internet access to the country’s small Jewish community. Jewish leaders in Cuba publicly deny any knowledge of Gross, but some in the community say they knew him.
Gross, currently being held in a cell at a Havana military hospital, has not been officially charged with a crime and remains under investigation, Cuban Attorney General Dario Delgado told reporters on Nov. 23. He did not explain the delay, but said “There’s no problem. Everything moves ahead as was foreseen ... it’s a normal case.”
Peter Kahn, Gross’ attorney in Washington, disagreed in a statement issued on Wednesday.
“Alan’s incarceration for a year without clarity of the legal process he will face or its timing is a travesty. It violates every international standard of justice and due process,” Kahn said.
“We continue to urge the Cuban authorities to release Alan immediately based on humanitarian grounds, as well as the fact that he has already served one year in prison,” he said. If the Cubans are holding him in hopes of gaining concessions from the United States, they have not said so publicly. But it is widely believed they would like to trade him for five Cuban agents imprisoned in the US.
