HAVANA (Reuters) – The head of the U.S. Council of Churches met on Wednesday with jailed contractor Alan Gross and Cuban President Raul Castro, in the latest push by a prominent American to obtain Gross’s release and improve relations with the communist-run country.
Gross received a 15-year prison sentence in March for crimes against Cuban state security for smuggling illegal satellite communications equipment into Cuba.
He was under contract with a U.S. company involved in a semi-covert democracy-building program, but says the equipment was only destined to connect local Jewish groups to Internet.
“Two of us visited Alan. We had a very good conversation and he was in good spirits,” the Rev. Michael Kinnamon, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, told reporters.
Cuban television said Kinnamon met later with Castro and they discussed the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba and the status of five Cuban agents imprisoned in the United States, but
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