Search
Close this search box.

LIVE STREAM @ 12:00 PM EST: President Obama Delivers a Statement on Release of Jewish Captive Alan Gross


PhotoGrid_1418829676711President Obama is set to deliver a statement of the release of Alan Gross after he was imprisoned for over 5 years in a Cuban jail. YWN will be carrying the stream for all readers to watch.

Gross, 65, was on an American government plane bound for the U.S. Wednesday morning after being released on humanitarian grounds by the Cuban government at the request of the Obama administration. As part of the secret negotiations to secure his release, the U.S. was releasing three Cuban jailed in Florida for spying.

Obama administration officials have considered Gross’ imprisonment an impediment to improving relations with Cuba.

Cuba was also releasing a non-American intelligence ‘asset’ along with Gross, according to a U.S. official. That official and others spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be identified by name before Obama’s remarks.

Bonnie Rubinstein, Gross’ sister, heard the news from a cousin, who saw it on television.

“We’re like screaming and jumping up and down,” she said in a brief telephone interview from her home in Texas.

Gross was detained in December 2009 while working to set up Internet access as a subcontractor for the U.S. government’s U.S. Agency for International Development, which does work promoting democracy in the communist country. It was his fifth trip to Cuba to work with Jewish communities on setting up Internet access that bypassed local censorship.

Cuba considers USAID’s programs illegal attempts by the U.S. to undermine its government, and Gross was tried and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

(AP)



5 Responses

  1. Normalization of relations with Cuba is a huge and long overdue event…maybe we can begin looking forward to Hemingway-like vacations in Havana!

  2. Now, what about Obama releasing captive Jonathan Pollard, imprisoned for over 30 years in an American jail?

    Cuba was one of the few countries in the world who accepted German refugees fleeing Hitler. The United States refused. We owe them Cuba eternal gratitude.

  3. Cuban president will likewise be announcing that Rubashkin and Pollard are being released by the Obama administration as a gesture of good will to the Jewish people.

    נא להרבות באמירת תהילים עבורם
    Anything could happen! It is the כל יכול who runs this world!

Leave a Reply


Popular Posts