A US aid contractor caught up in one of the world's last Cold War conflicts goes on trial on Friday for crimes against the Cuban state in a case that could put him in prison for 20 years and further damage US-Cuba relations. Alan Gross, 61, who already has spent 15 months in jail, is accused of illegally importing satellite communications equipment under a US program outlawed on the communist-led island.
A three-person panel will hear his case, which like most Cuban trials is expected to last only a day or two. The case could set back US-Cuba relations for years if Cuba decides to make an example of Gross and lock him away for years. But some observers believe a political solution has been or will be reached that will allow Gross to go free soon.
His wife, Judy Gross, has pleaded with Cuba to release him for humanitarian reasons because their 26-year-old daughter and Alan Gross' 88-year-old mother are battling cancer. She also has said her husband's health is deteriorating in prison.
The United States has said Gross, a long-time development worker who was in Cuba on a tourist visa, was setting up improved Internet access for Jewish groups, and insists that he committed no crimes. He was a contractor for a US Agency for International Development (USAID) program begun by the Bush administration to promote political change in Cuba.
Cuban leaders say the program is just another in a long line of US attempts at subversion dating to the earliest days of the 1959 revolution that put Fidel Castro, now 84, in power. His younger brother Raul Castro succeeded him as president three years ago. Gross will be defended by Cuban lawyer Nuris Pinero, who is well known in Cuba for participating in the defence of five Cuban agents jailed in the United States since 1998.
Some believe that Pinero's presence hints at Cuba's desire to swap Gross for the agents, who were linked to a 1996 shootdown of two US private planes by Cuban military jets. Pinero likely will "portray Gross as a dupe of US intelligence rather than someone with intent to damage the Cuban state," said Miami-based attorney Timothy Ashby, a former US Commerce Department specialist on Cuba.