Reuters/Havana

Cuba reacted angrily on Wednesday to a UN ruling that its imprisonment of American contractor Alan Gross was arbitrary and accused the US of lying about his health.
Josefina Vidal, a Foreign Ministry official, said Cuba received a copy of the yet to be published decision by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on Tuesday, the third anniversary of the arrest of Gross and the same day the US Senate passed a resolution demanding his release.
The ruling by the Geneva-based group has not been publicly released, but countries are often notified of decisions ahead of time. The group is part of a UN human rights body, but holds little power to enforce its ruling.
“On December 4, the Cuban government received the opinion of this group terming Alan Gross’ detention arbitrary,” Vidal said. She charged at a Havana news conference that the ruling came down unusually fast and blamed US pressure.
Vidal said the Cuban government responded to the decision on Wednesday, “demonstrating that the detention of Mr Gross in no way can be classified as arbitrary.”
Gross, 63, has been jailed in Cuba since December 3, 2009, and is serving a 15-year sentence for providing Internet gear to Cubans under a US program that Cuba views as subversive.
His imprisonment halted a slight thaw in relations between the two old foes that began soon after President Barack Obama took office in January 2009.
A lawyer for the Gross family, Jared Genser, filed the complaint earlier this year with the working group. Gross and his wife have also filed a $60mn lawsuit against the US government and the company that hired him as part of a contract with the US Agency for International Development.
In 2005, the same UN group ruled against the US treatment of five Cuban agents jailed in the US on spying charges. Four of the men remain in prison.
Cuba is widely believed to support the idea of a prisoner swap that would send Gross home in exchange for the four convicted Cuban spies, a deal the US has repeatedly rejected.
Vidal repeated Cuba’s interest in finding a negotiated solution to the two cases and called Washington’s refusal to talk “unrealistic and unsustainable.”
She also described assertions by the US State Department that Gross’ health is deteriorating and that he may have cancer as “lies.”
“A team of world-class doctors have provided Mr Gross with systematic attention since day one,” Vidal said.