Cuban prosecutors are to seek a 20-year prison sentence for US citizen Alan Gross, who is accused of spying.
Mr Gross, 61, has been charged with plotting against the state and his trial date will be set soon, Cuban state media reported.
The US, which insists Mr Gross is an aid worker not a spy, said it “deplored” the decision.
Washington has previously said there would be no major initiatives on US-Cuba relations until he was released.
Mr Gross was arrested in Havana in December 2009 and held without charge for 14 months.
He was working for the Cuba Democracy Programme, a US government programme aimed at promoting political change in Cuba.
The communist authorities consider this a subversive activity, and they allege that he was distributing illegal satellite equipment to Jewish community groups.
Now he has been charged with “acts against the independence and territorial integrity of the state”, a government statement published in the communist party newspaper Granma said.
“Cuba Democracy Programme, a US government programme aimed at promoting political change in Cuba”? Oh right. An aid worker. What sort of aid? Medical aid? Was he assisting Cuban doctors, among the most accomplished and respected in the world, in their outstanding health care efforts in Haiti? No? Was he an assistant professor at the University perhaps? No? Maybe he was helping organize the world film festivals or the international trade forums held annually in Cuba. No? Starting a musical group? Helping out on a farm? Just generally helping others? Or maybe just helping himself to another mojito while kicked back on the beach at one of the resort hotels ? Oh wait, it’s that “promoting political change in somebody else’s country” kind of aid work.
Thank goodness America never imprisons people caught bringing such “aid” to the US.
See the Cuban Five at the link and all over the web.
“”Those are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others.” ~Groucho Marx (1890-1977)