By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

HAVANA, Cuba — A human rights group at the United Nations urged Cuba this week to free an American held captive for more than three years.

The lawyer for Alan Gross publicly released a 12-page report by the U.N. Human Rights Council imprisonment watchdog on Tuesday.  The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention called Gross’s imprisonment arbitrary and Cuba’s judicial system biased.

Gross, an American contractor, is serving a 15-year sentence for delivering computer and communications equipment to Cuba’s Jewish community.  The equipment was used to access the Internet by bypassing government controls.  U.S. government programs paid for the tools, which were aimed at spreading democracy across the communist country.

The island nation outlawed all cooperation with the American programs, describing them as designed to snuff out communism.  Gross was charged with a crime against the state by acting against the country’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

But the report criticized Cuba’s judiciary as lacking independence, and it said that the nature of the alleged crime was imprecise.  And while the report said the failure of the courts to grant bail to Gross rendered his punishment arbitrary, it rejected complaints by Gross’s attorney that the process violated Gross’s due process rights or that the charges violated Gross’s free speech rights.

“By virtue of what has been set out, the Working Group asks the Government of Cuba to immediately release Mr. Alan Phillip Gross,” the report stated.

The Working Group has no enforcement powers; however, the ruling could pressure Cuban leaders to release Gross.

The Cuban government arrested Gross in December 2009 and convicted him in 2011.  Some have called his arrest an obstacle in efforts to improve relations between the United States and Cuba.

Gross’s family hired Jared Genser, an international human rights lawyer, to argue that both Gross’s arrest and conviction amounted to human rights abuse.

Cuba scoffed at the report’s conclusion last month, blaming the U.S. government for pressuring the UN group to take action.  The Cuban government reiterated that Gross received a fair trial.

Efforts to free Gross have been ongoing since his arrest.  Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), now President Obama’s nominee for Secretary of State, reportedly had a secret meeting in 2010 with Cuba’s foreign minister in New York.

According to Havana Times.org, Gross’s release was to be conditioned on ending the pro-democracy destabilization programs.  The Cuban-American Florida lobby, however, reportedly blocked those plans.

For further information, please see:

The Miami Herald — A U.N. Human Rights Group Has Urged Cuba to Free Alan Gross — 10 January 2013

CBS Local — UN Report Calls on Cuba to Release Alan Gross — 9 January 2013

Havana Times.org — Cuba: Failed Attempts to Free Alan Gross — 9 January 2013

JTA — U.N. Imprisonment Watchdog Calls on Cuba to Release Alan Gross — 8 January 2013