U.S. contractor found guilty in Cuba trial

[rabs]

By Jeff Franks – 2 hrs 27 mins ago
HAVANA (Reuters) – American contractor Alan Gross was found guilty on Saturday of working to destabilize Cuba's communist government, Cuba's state-run television reported, and now faces up to 20 years behind bars in the latest blow to U.S.-Cuba relations.

A panel of judges reached the widely expected verdict after two days of testimony including a vigorous defense by Gross, and now must decide his sentence, which will come in a few days, the report said.

Cuba accused Gross, 61, of distributing sophisticated satellite communications equipment for Internet access under a U.S. program that is outlawed and considered subversive by the Cuban government. He was officially charged with "acts against the independence and territorial integrity of the state."

Prosecutors are seeking a 20-year sentence for the longtime development worker, who has been jailed since his arrest in Havana on December 3, 2009

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110306/wl_nm/us_cuba_usa_contractor;_ylt=AurR5r9COY57VzjUNytVwVdvaA8F;_ylu=X3oDMTJucmdobGdlBGFzc2V0A25tLzIwMTEwMzA2L3VzX2N1YmFfdXNhX2NvbnRyYWN0b3IEY3BvcwMyBHBvcwM1BHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcnkEc2xrA3VzY29udHJhY3Rvcg--

[Judi Lynn]

1. Thanks for breaking the verdict for us. Should be interesting to see how the State Dept. responds.

The U.S. spends more in 12 hours than Cuba spends in one year for defense. Stunning distinction. The very idea such a vast country has been spying, allowing the idiot vicious radical right-wing lunatic thugs from Miami to sail to Cuba in fully armed boats, get off, go ashore, assassinate targets there, to hire bombers to do their dirty work in murdering Cubans, to try to destroy their tourist trade, in earlier days to destroy their sugar crops, or, as Cuban diplomat murderer Eduardo Arocena admitted in his NYC murder trial, deliver biological warfare weapons to Cuba for the CIA, destroy in-flight airliners and mass-murder the passengers, to pursue leftists all over the world, killing them, etc., etc., etc., etc., to allow these clowns to be so cocky about it they boast to others that the FBI simply turns its head, looks the other way while they do it is completely well-known to Cuba's people, as well as a whole lot more people in the world, and it makes this country look very cheap, underhanded, sneaky, and murderous.

It would seem hilarious when the US tries to take the "moral high road" with Cuba, but it's just savagely sad, impossibly sad, instead. Bay of Pigs? Explosion of La Coubre in Havana Harbor, in 1960? Etc., etc., etc.? Grotesque.

[flamingdem]

2. They need to own up to the role of USAID

in destabilization efforts instead of go into blame Castro mode for a change.

[Judi Lynn]

3. You bet they do. Until they do, fewer and fewer people are going to buy the image any longer

of a big, friendly, free country. Not so free and friendly if it gets its power from controlling the rest of the world.

As a former CIA guy said to a reporter, "USAID does openly now what the CIA used to do covertly."