Cuba to release 2,900 prisoners - but not American Alan Gross

Alan and Judy Gross

/ AP/Gross Family

Cuba on Friday announced plans to release more than 2,900 prisoners from jails but imprisoned U.S. contractor Alan Gross is not among them.

An official note posted on the government website Cubadebate.cu says the releases correspond to "established policy" and at the "numerous requests of relatives and diverse religious institutions, in a humanitarian and sovereign gesture."

The selection of prisoners to be released says the note is based on the "characteristics of the crimes committed, the good conduct maintained in prison, age and illnesses suffered, as well as the amount of time already served".

The releases will benefit prisoners over 60 years of age, the sickly, women, and also young prisoners with no prior criminal record. They come ahead of a planned visit from Pope Benedict XVI next spring.

Not included in the release, the government statement said, are those sanctioned for espionage, terrorism, murder, assassination, drug trafficking, violent sexual abuse of minors, armed robbery of homes with people inside, rape and corruption of minors.

However, the note concludes by saying that despite these exceptions, some prisoners sentenced for crimes against state security will be released, adding that these have already served most of their sentence and have demonstrated good behavior. The releases will take place in the coming days.

Since Gross has only served two years of his 15 years sentence for crimes against the state, he does not appear to meet the conditions for early release as described by the Cuban government.

Gross was arrested in December 2009 and sentenced last March to 15 years in prison for bringing illegal communications equipment into Cuba as part of a program subcontracted to his employer by USAID. The Cubans say this program and others like it are intended to overthrow throw their government.

President Obama and the State Department have said that Gross' imprisonment is a major obstacle to any further improvement in bilateral relations.

In July of 2010, following discussions between Cuban President Raul Castro and Catholic Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the communist government released more than 52 political prisoners and allowed them to leave the country in what was the island's largest mass liberation of prisoners of conscience in decades, but one now dwarfed by the wider prisoner release announced Friday.

Eighty-five foreign prisoners from 25 countries are also being released, Castro said, but those releases are contingent on their home countries agreeing to take them back. The group includes 13 women.

[berlinfoto-2009]

Banksters, CIA, Mafia, who killed Kennedy?
OSS operatives infiltrated the banking industry after WWII, Today 90% of CIA employees are employed within the continental United States. Yes the CIA employees are the ones profiting from the economic crisis.
These like thinking individuals are taking over the hands of financial and other power in the United States, with their secrecy and their government power.
This is why the USA is becoming such a police state and why their are so many individuals in Jail.
Any one who challenge what they are doing becomes a target of attack.
The Banksters or at least many are CIA or former CIA, employees. Their plan for the future is very NAZI.

[cybervigilante]

Lest we forget - the US has more people in prison than any other nation in the world, even China. And many for minor non-harmful "crimes" like smoking dope. But then, Prison Industry gets very rich off them and bribes congressbums to keep up their good work of costing the taxpayer fifty grand a year to house nonviolent offenders.

[berlinfoto-2009]

Many of the individuals in US prisons, are in prison for their leadership abilities. The were carefully culled out of mainstream society,to prevent them from leading the US into a brighter future.
More than likely they were implanted covertly with RFID Microchips, this gives the secret police an unseen enormous advantage. For the most part these people are set up in drug crime, with the aid of the RFID.

[Samlv]

We hinge a policy on one guy's status? Why?

Has to be domestic politics and PR puffing that --

[Dgunner]

I worked forthe US government during the cuban exodus of the late 70s.I found them to be a docile people who respect laws that respect them. They were very nice people and the culled thier own. If one or two were causing trouble for the betterment of the whole masses ? Then you would find them gutted and hanging on the wire in the next am.Sure there was good and bad among them but then that is just human nature. I can tell you this the cuban people were a hellof a lot better people to manage than the laos people.Cuba could be a much wealthier country and great ally if they weren't afraid og the chinese getting pissed over back peddleing thier contracts on peace and weapons deals.I would like to visit cuba if it were not the political blockades . I understand from the regugees that the island is beautiful but the castro regime are greedy fools who someday will die a terrible and slow death.

[longtree-2009]

cuba is said to have a fine medical school. if true, they can't be all that bad. cuba has been communist for years, as has china, and cuba's castros have managed to stay in power through many presidents here in the USA who have come and gone. don't cubans have it easy in becoming citizens of the USA since all they have to do is make it to florida's shores illegally and they have an automatic into citizenship? isn't parts of florida like cuba now with a heavy populaton of cubans? if cubans get a free pass to citizenship by entering illegally then so should others from other foreign nations including the much hated mexico.

[sepa2]

Their biotech industry is advance. Those who get a free pass kicked out African Americans who helped developed America from their neighborhoods

[Samlv]

The UK link of thinking is correct, mvet -- multi-culturalism has failed. It costs far more than it is worth.

[askagain]

Yeah. Cuba is some success story. The country has been run by a ruthless Communist dictator for years. The people are poor, live in shacks, and depend on government subsidies. Most cars are very old and held together with rubber bands. There is virtually no private ownership of private property. Health care and public education may be free, but life in Cuba without liberty and freedom doesn't sound appealing. Feel free to join the Cubans if that is your style.

[Samlv]

@econ -- you believe what a communist police state says because......

In Russia, they have a nickname for people who think like that -- 'useful idiots' -- do not fall for propaganda.

[nbcnews]

Cuba is dumping their responsibilities and their garbage. I just hope it does't wash up on our shores.

[Lerianis4]

Dumping their responsibilities? Hardly. The fact is that most of these people should not have been in prison/jail in the first place and criminals in America get clemency all the time.

[PourpaixPourpaix]

"Not included in the release, the government statement said, are those sanctioned for espionage, terrorism, murder, assassination, drug trafficking, violent sexual abuse of minors, armed robbery of homes with people inside, rape and corruption of minors."

Of course, all these folks will soon escape and be found floating in a rowboat off Miami Beach with the word "Refugee" tatooed to their foreheads.